London 2012 blog

Orient Way is a multi-million pound railway siding project that we need to deliver to a tight deadline, while maintaining the highest safety standards. Railway sidings are a series of tracks used to ‘park’ trains that only run during the morning and evening peak. Once these trains arrive at a facility like Orient Way, they are cleaned, restocked and made ready for evening peak travellers.

So what is my job all about? Is it going around telling all and sundry to put their hard hat on? No, not at all! Put simply, my job is to make sure that site workers go back to their families in the same condition they left in the morning.

A large amount of my job is spent talking with the workers and supervisors and educating them about health and safety issues. I believe that the workers themselves need to play the biggest role in achieving safe work practices. Giving them education and encouragement will prompt them to achieve high safety standards off their own backs.

To ensure safety across the Orient Way site, we worked closely with the main contractor during the planning phase. This meant we could work together from the start and establish our health and safety approaches before construction.

One of the key initiatives we implemented is the ‘Going for Gold!’ card scheme. This scheme focuses on positive reinforcement rather than issuing sanctions. Its purpose is to recognise when a site worker positively contributes to safety. The scheme has three types of cards - Gold (for exceptional contributions), Silver (for consistently meeting safety standards) and False Start (issued for any shortcomings).

When a Gold card is awarded, the site worker receives a gift. For example, a £10 voucher for the canteen van – this usually goes down very well! Three Silver cards also qualify for a Gold card. If a team member receives a False Start, we would consider a range of options, from re-training to removing them from site, depending on the breach.

Here is Pat English receiving a Gold award from Stella Lloyd for highlighting excavation safety hazards on site:



The great thing about these inspections is that they are not just carried out by safety professionals but by line managers - the people who have day to day contact with the workers on site. This is great because it means we have ‘eyes and ears’ all over site and ensures that we maintain our current reportable Accident Frequency Rate of zero. This is a statistic that I am very proud of and one that has been achieved through the excellent working relationship that we have developed with the main contractor.

In addition to safety, we have also made some great sustainability achievements while building this new facility. Once finished, Orient Way will have a wind turbine to power a small building on site.

We have also made excellent progress with reusing and recycling materials. For example, over 90 per cent of site clearance and site demolition material was either reused or recycled. This included 20,000 tonnes of ballast, 4,000 tonnes of crushed concrete, 620 tonnes of tarmac and 180 tonnes of steel! A further 3,250 yards of track has been reused as have 14 switch and crossing units - nine of these will be used on other London 2012 projects.

With 10 of the 12 new railway sidings already laid, we are on track to finish Orient Way this summer - with safety driving the project and sustainability remaining a top priority.