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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/aug/13/scottish-minister-warns-of-climate-challenge-after-stonehaven-crash
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Scottish minister warns of climate challenge after Stonehaven crash | Scottish minister warns of climate challenge after Stonehaven crash |
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Michael Matheson points to increasing intense weather after train derailment kills three people | Michael Matheson points to increasing intense weather after train derailment kills three people |
The climate crisis is presenting increasing challenges for rail safety, Scotland’s transport secretary has said after three people died in a derailment in Aberdeenshire following a night of thunderstorms and torrential rain. | |
The train’s driver, Brett McCullough, and conductor Donald Dinnie lost their lives along with a passenger when the 06:38 Aberdeen to Glasgow service came off the tracks and slid down an embankment at Carmont, just west of Stonehaven, on Wednesday. A further six people of a total of 12 onboard were injured. | |
The Scottish fire and rescue service said four firefighters were injured while dealing with the “hazardous and difficult scene” of the crash, which included a half-burnt carriage. | |
North-east Scotland was badly affected by torrential rain on Tuesday night. Minutes after the derailment is believed to have taken place, Network Rail Scotland tweeted a video of flooding elsewhere in the region alongside warnings of a landslip at Carmont. | |
The Scottish transport secretary, Michael Matheson, told Good Morning Scotland that investigating authorities would look at the conditions before the crash. | |
“The rail network are experiencing increasing challenges across different parts of the routes, not just here in Scotland but across the UK, due to what is an increasing number of very intense localised weather events that have a significant impact on the infrastructure that they have within the rail network,” he said. | |
A key first point for investigators – who include the British Transport Police, the Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) and the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) – will be to check how fast the train was travelling. | |
Sources have said it was presumed to have been travelling at normal service speed before encountering the obstruction. | |
While the exact timeline has yet to be established, it is not thought that there was a long delay between the ScotRail train’s derailment and emergency services being alerted at 9.40am. | While the exact timeline has yet to be established, it is not thought that there was a long delay between the ScotRail train’s derailment and emergency services being alerted at 9.40am. |
The train was running late after leaving Aberdeen and would have spent a long time in manoeuvres after coming across an initial obstacle – it is not clear whether this was flooding or a landslip, or both – on the line near Stonehaven. | |
The driver requested permission from signallers to use the adjacent track, and walked through the train to the rear locomotive to head back north. | |
After switching tracks at the first possible point, around 2 miles north, the train was again proceeding southbound to Glasgow on the alternative track and had passed the point of the first blockage when it derailed. | |
The crash occurred in a rural area with poor mobile reception, but emergency services were alerted by a crew member who contacted signallers using Network Rail’s trackside fixed phone line. | |
Matheson sought to reassure the public, saying: “These tragic events are very rare. It’s now some 13 years since someone was killed on the railway network in the UK because of an incident of this nature, and safety standards over the last 20-30 years have increased significantly to make the railway network one of the safest in Europe.” | |
Speaking following a visit to the scene on Thursday morning, the UK transport secretary, Grant Shapps, said he had asked Network Rail to carry out a quick resilience check and compile a more comprehensive check of its network. “We absolutely must make sure we learn every possible lesson from a tragedy like this,” he said. | |
Network Rail said it would carry out supplementary inspections of dozens of sites with similar trackside slopes and risk profiles to the Stonehaven line. | |
Network Rail was granted an extra £900m in its 2019-2024 budget period specifically to address the resilience of the railway infrastructure in the face of changing climate. A spokesman said: “Understanding what caused this tragedy is key to our programme of making the network more resilient to extreme weather events.” | Network Rail was granted an extra £900m in its 2019-2024 budget period specifically to address the resilience of the railway infrastructure in the face of changing climate. A spokesman said: “Understanding what caused this tragedy is key to our programme of making the network more resilient to extreme weather events.” |
An interim report is normally produced within a week outlining the main factors in a rail crash, although the full RAIB investigation into all underlying and contributory causes could take a year. | An interim report is normally produced within a week outlining the main factors in a rail crash, although the full RAIB investigation into all underlying and contributory causes could take a year. |
Ali Chegini, the director of system safety and health at the Rail Safety Standards Board, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We have seen an uptick in earth failures in the last couple of years and that is a tendency that is likely to continue as we get more and more frequent weather events.” | |