'They'll have blood on their hands': RMT anger at post-Stonehaven crash 'safety' cuts

Just over two years ago a rail crash at Carmont near Stonehaven in Aberdeenshire, claimed three lives and a series of deadly management failings were blamed by accident investigators.

Driver Brett McCullough, 45, conductor Donald Dinnie, 58, and passenger Christopher Stuchbury, 62, died when the 06:38 high speed Aberdeen to Glasgow Queen Street train left the tracks after hitting a landslip in August 2020.

RMT union chiefs in Scotland have raised serious concerns over plans to slash the safety-critical maintenance workforce in Scotland from nearly 2000. They say that 300 Scots maintenance staff with Scottish and UK government-subidised Network Rail are to go - while there are 200 vacancies.

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Network Rail are also looking to slash existing maintenance scheduled tasks by up to 50% through what it calls "better use of technology and data", and reducing the number of manual inspections carried out by teams.

It suggested that it would significantly reduce the safety risk to maintenance staff who have to access the railway infrastructure to undertake these inspections.

A Network Rail-commissioned study by specialist infrastructure consultants Nichols said that in one company, bringing in multi-skilled teams who can cover most maintenance needs with specialists could be covered with a team that was less than half the size.

Network Rail believes that the increasing employment of technology and upskilling teams can unlock "major efficiencies".

In its latest annual assessment, the ORR has questioned Network Rail Scotland's response to recommendations made in response to the Stonehaven rail crash. It has also said it was not compliant with requirements of its standards for examinations of structures - including signals and tracks - and earthworks At the end of March 2022 there were 4,392 instances of examination of non-compliance within its portfolio of 12,486 assets.

The ORR said: "As with structures, there is a potential that failure to examine earthworks and evaluate examination reports frequently enought could lead to an increased safety risk. The risk may be increased as earthworks are more likely to be impacted by severe weather events."

According to the ORR, Network Rail made £840m of "efficiency improvements" in 2021/22 - above a £830m target. But it has raise concern that Network Rail Scotland’s delivery of efficiencies was only £64 million, 21% behind its target.

Rail workers with the RMT are expected to resume strikes that will bring Scotland's rail services to a stand-still in a long-running dispute over pay, jobs and conditions after the Queen's funeral on Monday.

Some 40,000 of its members who work at Network Rail and 14 train companies were due to walk out on September 15 and 17 - but the stoppage was called off in respect for the passing of the Queen.

The RMT walkout follows six previous days of strike action by its members across June, July and August.

Network Rail is under the scrutiny of the ORR for a failure to provide evidence to show it has taken the necessary steps to learn the lessons from deadly management failings that were blamed for the horror rail crash near Stonehaven in which three people died and six were injured.

The rail regulator has said it is to carry out further investigations to ensure compliance after the Stonehaven crash probe found that Network Rail and railway managers were not properly prepared to deal with issues of heavy rain and had not adequately handled drainage issues that caused the landslip.

The Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) said that the railway industry’s risk assessments had clearly signalled that earthwork and drainage failure due to extreme rainfall was a "significant threat" to the safety of the railway but they had not clearly identified potential areas of weakness in the existing operational mitigation measures.

The RAIB found that the train derailed because it struck debris that had been washed out of a faulty drainage system constructed between 2011 and 2012 by failed outsourcing giant Carillion.

Both Network Rail, which owns the infrastructure, and the designers of the drain were unaware that Carillion did not build it to specification and so were not able to safely accommodate the water flows that morning.

Investigators found that the drainage works were not entered into Network Rail’s infrastructure maintenance database so it was never inspected or maintained after installation.

The RAIB’s investigation also found that the route controllers, who were responsible for the operational management of Scotland’s railway network, had not been given the information, procedures or training that they needed to effectively manage complex situations of the type encountered on the morning.

The found the control team was under severe workload pressure around time of the crash due to volume of weather-related events. But no additional staff were called in to help - even though plans existed to help with such issues through the senior management ‘gold command’ structure.

Gordon Martin, Scottish regional organiser for the RMT said that while many in the media had become wrapped up in the pay dispute that has led to the long-running strike that has crippled railways, he felt the real issue was safety.

"Network Rail will have blood on their hands. It was over two years ago ago that Carmont happened. People have short memories. They forget what happens with an infrastructure failure, because that is what the crash was. "They are halving the maintenance regime and that imports real danger into the network.

"They will put trains down embankments. They will kill people.

"If we don't win this, the safety of everyone travelling on the railway network will be in peril. We will not have that on our watch."

The RAIB probe found that that the management processes of Network Rail had not identified or addressed weaknesses in the way it dealt with the consequences of extreme rainfall events.

The railway industry's own risk assessments had "clearly signalled" that earthworks and drainage failure due to extreme rainfall was a "significant threat" to safety.

Despite an awareness of the risk, the RAIB said Network Rail had not completed the implementation of additional control measures following previous events or clearly identified potential areas of weakness Network Rail and RAIB concerns were heightened by a landslip just outside the portal of tunnel in Watford, Hertfordshire, in September 2016 that caused the derailment of a train.

They said railway managers should address the "obstacles" to effective implementation of lessons learnt from the investigation of accidents and incidents.

In its latest assessment, the ORR said that prioritised action plans had been made by the rail company to meet the 20 safety recommendations laid out by the RAIB but added that focus was needed to deliver them.

The analysis said:: “During our engagement, representatives from the region described the steps they have taken in response to their action plans but have subsequently failed to provide any tangible supporting evidence to demonstrate these.

“Network Rail Scotland also did not clearly articulate how each action plan will implement the relevant task force recommendations."

A Network Rail spokesman said: “The RMT’s dispute with Network Rail is not about safety and modernising how we work will not make the railway less safe. We are working hard to make our railway as safe and reliable as possible.

“Since the Carmont accident, we have made significant changes to how we operate services during extreme weather and have increased our investment in new technologies. Our operational control room is the first in Britain to establish a specialist weather team, and we are also recruiting more specialist geotechnical engineers and creating new dedicated teams for drainage inspection and maintenance.”