As Rail Safety Week 2026 gets underway from 15-21 June, the UK rail industry once again comes together around a shared commitment: ensuring every person who uses, works on, or lives near our railway returns home safe, every day. Rail Safety Week (RSW) aims to bring rail safety to the forefront of people’s minds, keeping safety firmly in the spotlight and sharing ideas and best practice across industry colleagues.
Ahead of Rail Safety Week 2026, Rail Forum have released their first podcast of the RSW series: The Importance of Safety on the Railway. In this episode, ORR’s Chief Inspector of Railways, Richard Hines, joins Rail Forum CEO, Elaine Clark OBE, to discuss safety culture, technology, and workforce wellbeing.
Together, they explore why safety must remain at the heart of everything the railway does, from workforce wellbeing and infrastructure risks to level crossings, trespass, fatigue, and the opportunities and challenges presented by new technologies.
The discussion also reflects on the industry’s ongoing transformation and the transition towards Great British Railways, highlighting the importance of strong safety culture, collaboration, accountability, and continuous improvement throughout periods of change.
Importantly, the episode recognises the thousands of frontline colleagues, signallers, engineers, maintainers, operators, contractors and emergency responders whose dedication keeps our railway running safely every day.
The week also opens with the Rail Safety Week Conference, taking place on Monday 15th June. This year’s conference explores two key themes that speak directly to the moment the industry finds itself in.
The first looks back at lessons learned from the Cullen Report into the Ladbroke Grove rail crash, and the importance of ensuring these are not lost amid the scale of change currently sweeping the sector.
The second theme turns to managing wellbeing during times of change. With the industry undergoing what is arguably its biggest upheaval in over thirty years, the conference will focus on psychological safety, share examples of current good practice, and explore the importance of truly understanding our people.
Rail Safety Week is a time to reflect, engage, and act. Whether through depot safety initiatives, boardroom conversations, or community outreach, every action counts.
Visit the Rail Safety Week website to find out more and get involved: https://www.railsafetyweek.org/
Keep up to date with all the activities and events from across the week on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/rail-safety-week/?viewAsMember=true
Listen to the new podcast, The Importance of Safety on the Railway, here: https://www.railforum.uk/podcast/