Answer extracted from the Creatures of the Industry podcast — listen to the full episode below.
What safety incident occurred during night shift work on an active railway bridge construction?
During the Long Walk railway bridge project, overhead power lines that should have been switched off remained live while workers in scissor lifts operated between them at night. The union health and safety crew intervened just in time, preventing what could have been a catastrophic accident.
The incident unfolded on what Ray Smith describes as a hairy night when the operational logistics broke down completely. Workers were positioned in scissor lifts—elevated work platforms requiring precise positioning—on an active railway bridge where the infrastructure overhead carried live electrical current. The danger was not theoretical: a single contact with energized lines would have been fatal.
What made this near-miss particularly grave was the communication failure at the core of it. The power lines were supposed to be de-energized as a safety precaution before night shift work began, a standard protocol on any active railway construction site. The fact that they remained live—with workers already in position and beginning operations—meant that nobody's safety systems had functioned. As Smith explains in the episode, it took the union health and safety representatives being on-site and vigilant to catch the error before tragedy struck.
Ray Smith — Construction worker and union delegate. Smith spent 16 to 18 months on the Long Walk railway bridge project and progressed through major infrastructure work including the Eastlink project. As a CFMEU union delegate across multiple Victoria sites, he became instrumental in advocating for worker safety protocols and challenging unsafe practices on active construction and infrastructure projects.
The broader lesson embedded in this incident is straightforward: union presence and active health and safety monitoring saved lives. On a night when the formal safety checklist had failed, when the electrical contractor or rail operator had not properly communicated the de-energization, and when management procedures had not caught the gap, it was the union representatives—workers embedded on the site—who conducted a final, critical safety audit.
This is not an abstract safety philosophy. In the full episode, Smith recounts the incident as a moment when the informal safety culture of the construction site—the willingness of experienced workers to speak up and stop work—proved more reliable than any signed-off checklist. It was the kind of catastrophe that would never have appeared in accident statistics because it was averted before it happened.
If you want to understand how such a gap could occur on a major infrastructure project, Smith's account explores the coordination pressures and human factors that create these blind spots in otherwise professional operations.
See also
What contamination issues were encountered on the Coot Island redevelopment project?
The site contained PFAS chemical residue from a historical fire, which had leached into the subsoil and persists to this day. Workers were exposed to contaminated groundworks that revealed the full extent of the chemical legacy left behind.
How did a music industry professional transition into construction labouring in 2004?
Ray Smith finished his previous life in the music industry and rang Steve Longy asking if it was possible to give him a job as a labourer, intending to stay for just 12 months before finding the camaraderie and culture of the site too compelling to leave.
What approach did Ray Smith take when confronted with disrespectful behavior from a touring artist?
When a Gallagher brother from Oasis was carrying on rudely at Sydney Entertainment Centre during their tour, Ray politely but firmly responded to the disrespectful conduct, earning respect from his peers for standing his ground.