Landslides are the biggest threat to rail’s proud safety record

The derailment on September 16 at Watford Tunnel highlights an issue about which there is increasing concern in the rail industry.

I did a few radio interviews about the incident, and it was interesting that the focus was principally about the delays caused by the landslip, rather than the safety risks. I tried to correct that impression. It would have taken a very small difference to have turned this into a major disaster, with a high rate of casualties. The affected train stayed upright. But if it had not, or even if it had strayed a little bit further onto the Down line, the northbound service would have smashed into it at great speed and the near decade-long record of no fatalities as a result of train accidents would have been ended. This was, like the Tangmere Signal Passed at Danger incident near Wootton Bassett last year ( RAIL 771) - a very lucky and narrow escape

When I wrote about this previously in RAIL, I noted that the RSSB (Rail Safety & Standards Board) reckoned that 7% of the risk on the railway is weather-related.

In this time of rapid climate change and exceptional weather events, that risk is rising. There has been a series of landslips which have disrupted the rail network in the past three years in places as diverse as North Wales, Yorkshire, Devon, Cumbria and now Hertfordshire, just to mention a few, and each of them could have caused a major disaster.

The cost, too, is escalating and there will now be increased pressure on Network Rail to speed up its preventative work, putting further pressure on its investment plan.