A mining company has been fined $640,000 after a judge determined that despite having effective safety measures in place for years, their workplace safety system had a critical weakness – it depended entirely on one person to protect an entire crew.

The incident occurred at the Appin Colliery in NSW during July 2022, when a train moved through a mine tunnel where workers were performing roof repairs.

Workers jumped clear to avoid being struck, but the train caught a hydraulic line attached to their maintenance equipment, causing the machinery to hit a worker and inflict severe leg injuries.

Endeavour Coal Pty Ltd, which operated the mine and was then fully owned by South32 Ltd, has since been sold to GM3, a global coal company, in 2024.

After an investigation by the NSW Resources Regulator, Endeavour Coal admitted to a category-2 violation of the State Work Health and Safety Act 2011 for putting employees at risk of fatal or serious harm.

NSW Industrial Court Justice Jane Paingakulam acknowledged that Endeavour Coal had established “multiple safety protocols to manage hazards related to train operations” in the mine, which had successfully prevented miner collisions for many years.

These safeguards included banning train movement during mining work in shafts, flashing warning beacons on trains, mandatory communication between drivers and work crews during train operation, and comprehensive video surveillance of track ahead.

Nevertheless, Justice Paingakulam determined “the problem with these safety controls was their effectiveness hinged on one person’s reliability” – the train operator.

The measures failed to protect against the predictable possibility of human mistakes and lapses in attention, the court found.

“Top-level” protocols proved “minimally effective”

Justice Paingakulam observed that following the accident, Endeavour Coal implemented a procedure requiring the train to be disabled and secured when crews worked in shafts.

When disabling the train wasn’t feasible, the revised protocol mandated placing flashing warning beacons 100 metres on each side of the crew and installing reflective warning signs at the shaft entrance alerting that personnel were working inside.

Justice Paingakulam highlighted that both the train operator involved and the crew supervisor were highly experienced at the facility and had completed multiple safety procedure training courses.

The crew members had likewise received safety instruction, she noted.

However, Endeavour’s vehicle operations hazard management procedure in effect at that time was a “broad management framework”, and consequently “it had minimal practical value without an implementation procedure”, Justice Paingakulam stated.

“The requirement for this procedure had been recognized years before but hadn’t been acted upon,” she said.

She further noted that disabling the train during shaft maintenance work would not create a “major burden or disruption to Endeavour Coal”.

She rated the objective severity of the violation as moderate.

She opted to decrease the penalty for the guilty plea by 20 per cent instead of the standard 25 per cent, because Endeavour Coal’s challenges to accepting certain worker interview records caused delays.

She imposed a fine of $800,000, reduced by 20 per cent to $640,000.