Mid-September before line reopens, says Network Rail

NETWORK Rail doesn’t expect the line through Carmont to open for around a month, as it faces the mammoth task of recovering the two power cars and four coaches from ScotRail’s wrecked train, repairing Bridge 325, stabilising earthworks around the landslip, and replacing the track.

One week after the accident, NR had still to take over the accident site from investigators, although spokesman Kevin Groves told RAIL that NR had started planning its recovery.

He explained that engineers had been able to examine the bridge visually, and had started surveying likely sites for access roads and where to place the heavyweight recovery crawler crane. NR was also ordering the aggregates needed for the access roads.

Bringing the main crane to the site will be a difficult logistics problem. It takes 20 large lorries to move it and needs a smaller crane to be built first that then builds the main crane. Groves estimated that it might take a week just to get the main crane in place and ready.

He said it was possible the main crane could directly reach some of the wrecked vehicles, but that others might need to be moved within reach using a Kirow rail crane or an Army armoured recovery vehicle such as a CRARRV.

Once the vehicles are recovered, which might take a week, Groves

said they will be taken by lowloader to a secure Rail Accident Investigation Branch facility. Here, investigators will continue to comb them for evidence of how the accident happened.

Earthworks around the site of the landslip will need to be stabilised and made safe for trains to pass. Engineers will be closely checking the bridge for damage beyond the obvious smashed parapets. They will need to make repairs and satisfy themselves that the bridge is fit for traffic.

Groves said it was likely that sleepers and rails would need to be replaced, and that there would be work for the signals and telecommunications department to carry out.

As this issue of RAIL went to press, Groves said that Network Rail was finalising its plan to co-ordinate all the different activities needed to make the line ready to run trains once more.

PA PHOTOS. Investigators and emergency services inspect a BT10 bogie from under a Mark 3 trailer coach.

Deputising for failed ‘A4’ 60009 Union of SouthAfrica, BR 40160 crosses Bridge 325 over Carron Water with a southbound special train for Edinburgh in April 1981.

PA PHOTOS. A field above the accident site became the car park and base for rescuers, investigators and the recovery team. NR now faces a difficult task recovering August 12‘s crash wreckage.