The challenges of duct cleaning at busy railway stations
The air and water hygiene services we offer can take place in any building – sometimes the job appears to be relatively straightforward but often our teams have to work under difficult circumstances with specific Health & Safety requirements. One example is ventilation cleaning at railway stations and underground stations, where there are hazards such as live wires and strict time scheduling – particularly if working on ventilation systems above a platform.
Customer-specific requirements are discussed and resolved during our thorough onboarding process. This is when there needs to be complete and clear communication between the client and the contractor. Every aspect of the job needs to be reviewed to ensure there are no surprises further down the line.
Permits, risk assessments and method statements must be in place before any work goes ahead – each station may have its own unique process. Sometimes you may need to work with other trades or contractors, and this forms part of the logistical planning – for example, you might need to coordinate the Ansul isolation and service at the same time as a clean; to ensure minimum disruption to the unit and client.
Our teams are specially inducted to work in railway stations. These inductions can vary by network, by station or even by platform. The time taken for each site crew member to be inducted depends on the type of work they are doing and the areas they are working in. Sometimes they can take up to an hour or two to complete but they can take up to half a day for very specific work in higher-risk areas.
Swiftclean has carried out a variety of air and water hygiene services from kitchen extract and grease trap cleans to ventilation cleans and legionella risk assessments at train stations including the underground in London and all over the UK. We also work on station units for the Eurotunnel in the UK.
Surprisingly, it is easy to work reactively on these sites – so long as the work permits, and paperwork is in place beforehand – to attend any station out of hours as they are in readily accessible areas of the country and our teams are well located across the UK to reach these.
There is usually a short window of opportunity to carry out work on a station platform as it cannot be carried out whilst trains are running e.g. between 1am and 5am – after the last train and before the first train of the day, and this window can be even shorter across the weekend.
Specific PPE (personal protective equipment) is required to be worn on railway sites; orange hi-vis (covering arms and legs not just a top) instead of yellow must be worn. Specific equipment must be used such as orange fibreglass ladders, to avoid electric shocks when working on and around the concourse.
Solving access issues can be a challenge as buildings and concourses can be very old or have had many refurbishments. Particularly in London Underground stations, the building layouts are complex, and we count on our expert knowledge in the field to resolve access issues to reach full compliance.
Day work or work taking place in busy areas has to be planned accordingly using barriers and signage to ensure that pedestrians and the workforce stay safe.
With our knowledge and experience, we’re able to anticipate where issues could arise and put plans in place to mitigate these, saving the client possible headaches further into the job.
