Interesting photo, the railhead is almost buried in the ballast, he won't have far to fall. Stepping on the rail never was an issue here, only in the past couple of years with the "let's make more and more stupid rules" set moved into Govt.
Back in the 70-80's there always was a competition with the SeniorDriver on the dayshift shunt to see if we could walk the entire length of the mainline from Loco depot to the station and back on the 91lb railhead when we picked up the daily corre.
Never saw anyone fall, slip or trip either, we rode the footboards all the time and stepped off on the move, shunting or piloting around the depot.