Rail safety
What does a rail project in Australia have to prove?
The Rail Safety National Law is one Act adopted in every state, and ONRSR regulates it. A signalling project meets it through the operator's safety management system, the interface agreements around the line, and the occurrence reports when something goes wrong. This hub holds the rows the law states, chapter by chapter.
The instrument
One Act, 26 rows held, each with the section that states it and the penalty the section sets. The rows are grouped into four chapters below.
| Instrument | Publisher | Rows | Read |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rail Safety National Law (South Australia) Act 2012Rail Safety National Law (Queensland) reprint, current as at 26 May 2025; the national law is a Schedule to the South Australian Act and each state's adoption Act modifies its application | South Australian Parliament | 26 | 19 October 2026 |
The four chapters
Each chapter takes one question a project asks, in the order the duties start: who may operate, what the system must contain, what must be reported when it fails, who may work on the railway, and what a change owes the parties at the interface.
- Accreditation and the SMSWhat accreditation requires, what the safety management system must contain, and the risk register, change process and annual report behind it.
- Notifiable occurrencesWhat a rail operator must report to ONRSR, the Category A, B and C timeframes under s 121 and reg 57, and the investigation duty.
- Rail safety workersWho counts as a rail safety worker, the health and fitness, drug and alcohol and fatigue programs, competence, identification and the worker's own duty.
- Interfaces and signallingThe interface agreements a signalling change touches, the 28-day notice before a changed design standard, and the interoperability plan.
Signalling is not the law
A signalling system is designed and certified against technical standards. The duties in this hub are the ones the law places around that system, not the ones that decide whether the system is safe to run. AS 7711:2026 Signalling Principles, published by ARISO (formerly RISSB) on 19 February 2026, is the standard a project is usually held to by contract or by the infrastructure manager's engineering standard. AS 7717:2026 Signal Testing and Commissioning and AS 7722:2026 EMC Management are the other two. None is in this library yet.
ETCS is a project decision, not an Australian regulatory mandate. Hitachi Rail is the delivery partner on the South East Queensland ETCS Level 2 programme, which includes the Cross River Rail link and the Kuraby to Beenleigh and Beenleigh to Varsity Lakes sections, and Alstom won the first Sunshine Coast package. ONRSR regulates the safety management system, the interfaces and the occurrence reports around those projects, which is what this hub holds.
What this page is, and is not
It is the section text this library holds from the Rail Safety National Law, with the window and the consequence. It is not legal advice, and it is not a substitute for reading the Act, the National Regulations and the contract you signed.
No library of law is complete, and Demiton never says this one is. An obligation the library does not hold, and you did not add, is not protected. You can add your own to any job.
The Rail Safety National Law is drafted for the next library release and was read on 19 October 2026. The rest of the library is public release v19; until the next release, the rows on this page are the draft, not the published set.
Clauses read from the obligation library, release v19, last checked against the source on .