Railway Safety Publications (RSPs)

Duty holders must be satisfied that they are doing all that is needed under their health and safety duties to control risks.

Compliance with guidance issued by us is not mandatory - as it provides advice on how an issue may be addressed. However, it is mandatory to comply with all relevant health and safety legislation.

Railway inspectors seek to secure compliance with the law and may refer to these publications as illustrating good practice.

Railway Safety Publications will eventually replace all Railway safety principles and guidance (RSPG) documents, created when HMRI was part of HSE.

Railway safety principles and guidance (RSPG) parts 1 and 2

Parts 1 and 2 of RSPG were produced by HSE for use by organisations wishing to obtain approval for new or altered works, plant and equipment under the Railways and Other Transport Systems (Approval of Works, Plant and Equipment) Regulations 1994 (ROTS). The Railway and Other Guided Transport Systems (Safety) Regulations 2006 (ROGS) revoked ROTS for mainline operators.

However, ROTS was retained according to following transitional provisions, described in ROGS:

• For mainline operators, applications under ROTS were accepted until October 2006 with works due for approval and bringing into use by October 2008. 
• Works not completed by 1 October 2008 will need to be completed under ROGS and managed under the safety management system (SMS) or safety verification (SV) arrangements. Dutyholders can elect to transfer works from ROTS to ROGS SV or SMS processes at any point up to October 2008, and we must be informed of the proposed transfer.
• For tramways and heritage railways the dates were extended to October 2008 and October 2010 respectively.

Duty holders are reminded that they must be satisfied that they are doing all that is needed under health and safety duties to control risks.

Because ROTS has been revoked there no plans to update these documents apart from RSPG Part 2E Guidance on level crossings.