Stonehaven train crash report calls for tighter heavy rain restrictions

Heavy rain could lead to more trains being cancelled or told to travel at low speed in future, following the Stonehaven crash that killed three people in Aberdeenshire last month.

An interim report by Network Rail into the tragedy spelled out strengthened procedures that could hasten line closures in bad weather, pending safety inspections.

At-risk areas are understood to include parts of mainline routes including from London to Glasgow and London to Bristol.

The Stonehaven crash, which was the first fatal accident in the UK involving people on a train since 2007 – occurred when the Aberdeen-Glasgow service derailed at almost 75mph after striking a landslip at Carmont on 12 August.

Network Rail said it had since examined 584 sites considered at similar risk to the line at Stonehaven, and only about 1% required intervention. But it added: “There will be occasions when additional speed restrictions will be required on particular lines if heavy rainfall is judged to present a heightened risk to earthwork stability.”

The report said: “Slopes can fail with little indication of distress prior to failure if a sufficiently high volume of water falls locally.”

The landslip near Stonehaven amassed within three hours of an earlier train passing without incident. About 50mm (2 inches) of rain fell in the morning before the crash, the report said, washing out rock around a drain that was installed in 2010. The drainage was inspected by Network Rail in May this year, and the earthworks around the line were inspected in June.

Local route managers and signallers will be given more power to cut speeds or close lines. Signallers have been reissued instructions that concerns over severe weather and floodwater should mean “all trains are stopped until the infrastructure is inspected by a competent engineer”.

The report said: “Climate change is often viewed as a future problem. However, it is already causing more frequent and more severe extreme weather events and we are experiencing its impacts.”

More money will be invested in hyper-local weather forecasting, and deploying technology across the network to predict track failures.

The transport secretary, Grant Shapps, said: “We owe it to those who lost their lives … to act on every possible lesson to ensure this is never repeated. I welcome the work setting out the challenges in adapting our rail infrastructure to cope with increasing extreme weather events caused by climate change.”

Network Rail’s chief executive, Andrew Haines, said: “Earthworks and drainage infrastructure – some of which are more than 150 years old – prove to be a real challenge as the country experiences more heavy rainfall and flooding.

“Our railway is one of the safest in Europe and tragic accidents are incredibly rare, but something went wrong on 12 August near Stonehaven and it is a stark reminder that we must never take safety for granted.”

Network Rail said it was investing a record £1bn in track resilience to extreme weather over a five-year plan to 2024.

The train drivers’ union Aslef said the report raised “rather more questions” than it answered. Kevin Lindsay, Aslef’s organiser in Scotland, said: “Why has it taken the loss of three lives for the Tory government at Westminster to ask for a report of this nature from Network Rail, when those of us who work in the rail industry have known about these problems – and called for action – for many years?”

The three people who died in the Stonehaven crash were the train’s driver, Brett McCullough, the conductor, Donald Dinnie, and one passenger, Christopher Stuchbury.