Carmont crash line
Network Rail aims to have line through Carmont open again in the first week of November, after August‘s crash.
NETWORK Rail hopes to have its line through Carmont open on November 3, nearly three months after August 12’s fatal derailment.
The company was unwilling to confirm the date as this issue of RAIL closed for press, because it was worried about the potential disruption from bad weather forecast for the weekend before the planned reopening.
NR has spent the past few weeks replacing tracks, renewing drains, and repairing damage to Bridge 325 and telecoms cables.
As RAIL closed for press, NR spokesman Kevin Groves said that drainage was 85% complete, with telecoms work expected to be completed on October 28 and track tamping expected to start on October 29.
NR has built a short concrete wall at the base of a slope drain, where a small landslip occurred that derailed ScotRail’s 0658 Aberdeen-Glasgow Queen Street on August 12 ( RAIL 912).
The train was returning north after its route south was blocked by floods. It struck the landslide, derailed, demolished a parapet of Bridge 325, and came to rest with one power car and a coach down an embankment. Two further coaches were left astride the track, with the fourth coach and rear power car remaining roughly in line with the track.
Three people died in the accident - Driver Brett McCullough, Guard Donald
Dinnie and passenger Christopher Stuchbury.
On the morning of the accident, there had been intense rain across the area, and its aftermath prompted UK Secretary of State for Transport Grant Shapps to call for NR to rapidly review its flood resilience.
NR created two task forces - one led by Julia Sligo and looking at its response to weather, and the other investigating earthworks management under Robert Mair ( RAIL 913).
In the weeks that followed, NR cleared vegetation from around the site, improved temporary access roads to the site, and put Carron Water into pipes to allow it to build a pad on which to sit a recovery crane.
This crane lifted the first of the six wrecked vehicles on September 10 ( RAIL 914). The last vehicle, front power car 43140, left on September 18.
Investigations continue by Police Scotland on behalf of Scotland’s Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal, the Rail Accident Investigation Branch and the Office of Rail and Road.