Nick Millington MBE FREng

Route Director, Network Rail Wales and Borders Route

For nearly 200 years, railway safety relied on a person with a flag, whistle and horn to warn of oncoming trains.

Nicholas Millington challenged the accepted way of managing trackworker safety, introducing engineering and systems solutions across the national railway network that removed the need to rely on fallible human protection systems. This resulted in a step-change in the safety culture within the railway industry with improved planning for safety as a priority.

The safety improvement programme led by Nick has so far reduced the number of near miss events by 70% with further improvements still planned.