UK crash report to question 1960s track technology

[John Ashworth]

Cumbria rail crash report to question safety of 1960s track technology

· State of 700 sets of points called into question
· Network Rail braces for outburst of public concern

Dan Milmo, transport correspondent
Monday August 27, 2007
The Guardian

The safety of up to 700 sets of points used across the rail network will be called into question next month as a key report outlines the causes of last February's fatal train crash in Cumbria.

A study of the Grayrigg derailment, due to be published over the next fortnight, will provoke concern about decades-old railway technology that is still in widespread use.

The rail industry report is expected to state that Network Rail will examine the design of groundframe points after a faulty set derailed a Virgin train travelling at 95mph on February 23 2007 killing one person and injuring 22. If the equipment needs to be replaced the rail infrastructure firm would have to change up to 700 sets of points at a cost of millions.

Network Rail is braced for another outburst of public concern about the safety of the railways once the report is published. Confidence in the railways has recovered significantly since the Potters Bar crash which killed seven people in 2002, but industry sources have warned that the Grayrigg report will make alarming reading because of the incident's similarities with Potters Bar, which was also caused by faulty points.

A rail industry source said there are question marks over whether groundframe points, designed in the 1960s, are robust enough for modern rail travel: "The issue of whether they are the right type of points needs to be addressed." The source added that a wholesale replacement programme might be needed because doubts over the points could force Network Rail to step up track inspections, which could in turn delay trains.

"If Network Rail ends up having to inspect these points every three days instead of every seven days it could interrupt services. So they could mitigate that by replacing these points altogether."

A Network Rail spokesman said yesterday that the analysis of what caused the crash will be hard-hitting. He added that, despite the emphasis on problems within local management, the report would recommend changes at a national level.

"The report will be sobering reading for Network Rail," he said. "It will be the first time that the rail industry has ever published anything as thorough as this. Right from the start we have held up our hands about the incident."

The industry report, produced with most of the input coming from Network Rail and Virgin Trains, will be followed later this year by a further report from the Department for Transport's Rail Accident Investigation Branch. That report is expected to raise concerns over the groundframe points in more detail. Roger Ford, technical editor of Modern Railways magazine, said groundframe points posed a threat only if they were inspected infrequently. "They need to be maintained regularly and properly. Quality and frequency of maintenance is the key," he said.

Alongside concerns over the points, the study's focus will be a breakdown in communications among Network Rail's Cumbria workforce which contributed directly to the crash. It is expected to state that track inspections were not carried out as planned, that records of inspections were flawed and that safety certification used by some engineers had expired.

Industry sources also confirmed reports yesterday that two different inspection teams thought the other had inspected the points prior to the crash and therefore failed to inspect a crucial stretch of track at Grayrigg. As a result, a Virgin Pendolino train travelling from London to Glasgow on the night of February 23 was derailed by a broken set of points that should have been noticed earlier by track inspection teams.

British Transport police have arrested a 46-year-old Network Rail employee in connection with the crash. Network Rail executives were forced to freeze their own bonus payments in May. They performed the about-turn hours after saying they would pocket the payouts despite suspending bonuses for 119 fellow employees in the wake of the crash. Four current and former executive directors are due a total of £286,000 in bonuses. The 119 employees, who will be told whether they get their payouts once the investigation is completed, are mostly maintenance workers in the Grayrigg area.

The report is expected to put the executive bonuses under pressure, but Network Rail executives are adamant that the main causes of the crash were due to a failure of the local maintenance system and did not reflect problems at a national level.