Wrongly built drainage system led to train crash

[John Ashworth]

Wrongly built drainage system led to Stonehaven train crash, investigators find

A drainage system wrongly built by Carillion and unchecked by Network Rail led to the Stonehaven train crash, investigators have found, when a Scotrail train hit debris washed by rain on to the railway track. Three people died on 12 August 2020 in the worst fatal event on the UK railways in 18 years, when the passenger train from Aberdeen to Glasgow derailed at Carmont, near Stonehaven, after heavy rainfall. Inspectors said the drainage system and earthworks, installed in 2011-12 by the contractor Carillion to stabilise the slope above the track, “had not been constructed in accordance with the original design and so were not able to safely accommodate the water flows” when almost a month’s rainfall, 51.5mm, fell in three hours. The changes made by Carillion, which went bust in 2018, were not noted by Network Rail, which did not inspect the upper parts of the drainage system after a handover in 2013...