Safety and Compliance Director appointed to West Somerset Railway PLC Board

The West Somerset Railway PLC Board have appointed Martin Brown as Safety & Compliance Director. This appointment has come after Mr Brown held an initial advisory position to assist with Safety and Compliance across the railway.

Mr Brown is also currently Crossrail's, or the Elizabeth Line's, Health and Safety Director and has much experience in the field. He also has a Mechanical Engineering Degree (Sheffield), an MA in Industrial Relations (Warwick) and undertook post graduate research work at Imperial College on impacts of the changes from the Health & Safety at Work Act.

He worked for the HSE covering most industry sectors but mainly construction including both inspection and enforcement, and policy. He has worked for Her Majesty’s Railway Inspectorate too (then within HSE) where he developed the safety case assessment protocols for the Inspectorate and wrote the still current HMRI competence guide, and for Tube Lines (London Underground Maintenance Company) as HSE Director.

He then worked for London Rail (Dockland Light Railway/Trams/Overground) as their HSE Director and led on assurance of the new Overground railway before moving to TFL (Transport for London) where he led on Corporate health and safety and on London Underground.

Commenting on his appointment, Mr Brown said: "I am really excited to be joining the new Board of WSR as their Safety and Compliance Director. I am sure i can bring my experience to the role to ensure we can maintain a real heritage experience while delivering a 21st Century safety set up."

Mr Jonathan Jones Pratt, West Somerset Railway Chairman says “ Martin, has been an integral person within our winter works programme and has proved invaluable through what has been a very busy period for the railway, The collective feeling across the Board, was to appoint Martin as Director, and we are looking forward to continuing to benefit from his expertise and enthusiasm for the success of the railwa