EVERY primary and secondary school in Richmond has been targeted by the rail industry as part of the second annual National Railway Crime Week (June 15th –22nd).

With more than 90 per cent of railway crime being committed by young people, schools are being asked to help reinforce the railway safety message next week, which coincides with national child safety week.

Recent months have seen complaints of serious criminal activity centred on Hampton Wick station.

With more than 6,500 crimes committed on the railway each year at a cost to the industry of more than £150 million, the problem is one of the key challenges facing the nation’s railway network and lineside communities.

Following the introduction of a more focused and co-ordinated cross-industry approach launched to coincide with the first national railway crime week last year, there was a 16 per cent reduction in route crime – i.e. lineside offences - on the network during 2002/03.

Now efforts are being accelerated and new initiatives being introduced to drive crime down even further.

Dedicated police officers targeting crime hotspots is just one of the new weapons in the railway crime armoury.

Railway crime costs the industry some £150 million a year causing some 13,000 hours delay to trains. More than half of all reportable train accidents are caused by vandalism.

Chief Superintendent Peter Edwards of the British Transport Police and a member of the national route crime group adds: "Tackling route crime has got to be at the top of our list of policing priorities. In recent years a number of well-reported tragic incidents such as Ladbroke Grove and Hatfield have rightly raised public concern about safe travel on the railways. But these were exceptional events. In fact I believe we should be equally or even more concerned about the threat to rail safety posed by crime.

"Such crimes are a daily occurrence on Britain’s railways and I find it remarkable that they do not grab the headlines in the same way as the recent incident on a motorway where two young girls were throwing items from a bridge onto passing motorists. There are hundreds of similar incidents every week on Britain’s railways."

The industry’s National Route Crime Group is made up of key representatives from passenger and freight operators, Rail Safety & Standards Board (RSSB), the Health and Safety Executive, British Transport Police, Network Rail, infrastructure contractors, the Rail Passengers Council and the Strategic Rail Authority.