Almost 40 landslides last year on rail network
RAIL chiefs were warned about the safety of tracks weeks before the landslip which caused a train to derail and kill three people.
A watchdog report published last month states that, after a number of incidents where bad weather had caused rocks and earth to block the rails, only ‘good fortune’ had saved trains from coming off the tracks.
The Office of Road and Rail (ORR) urged Network Rail, which manages more than 20,000 miles of track across the UK, to assign an Extreme Weather Action Team to take action to prevent future disasters.
On Wednesday, three men died after a train derailed near Stonehaven, Kincardineshire.
There are fears about the threat from landslips to the rail network. Figures show there were 38 incidents last year, one fewer than the three previous years combined.
Eight of last year’s landslips occurred in Scotland. There are also concerns about the impact climate change is now having.
Gareth Dennis, railway engineer and writer, told the BBC yesterday: ‘We don’t spend enough on our transport infrastructure, but particularly sustainable transport infrastructure like railways. So keeping pace is a real challenge.
‘Climate change is resulting in the UK having more extremes of rainfall, more extremes of high temperatures... getting dried out, desiccated in the heat, and then we have these extreme, short periods of very high rainfall, and it’s pushing the earthworks beyond their capabilities.’
The ORR is now part of a joint investigation – alongside Police Scotland and British Transport Police – into the tragedy, and will report to the Lord Advocate. Yesterday it would not comment whether the warnings highlighted in its report in July had been heeded by Network Rail. However, last month, the ORR raised fresh concerns.
In a report, it said: ‘A persistently wet winter, culminating in several storms in February 2020 resulted in a number of earthwork failures.
‘None of these incidents led to a derailment or other serious incidents, although in some cases there was an element of good fortune involved.’
Colin Smyth, Scottish Labour transport spokesman, said: ‘It is vital there is a thorough inquiry.’
An ORR spokesman said: ‘There are increasing risks from extreme weather which are well known in the industry and our recent annual health and safety report highlighted that there have been six times more flooding events and a trebling of earthworks failures on Britain’s railways in the last year.’
Since the incident, Network Rail has inspected dozens of higherrisk trackside slopes, mobilised its Extreme Weather Action Team, and held talks with meteorologists about how to respond quickly to flash flooding.
Andrew Haines, Network Rail’s chief executive, said: ‘As more detail emerges, we will push on with our plans to build even more resilience into our railway.’
‘Increasing risks from extreme weather’