Network Rail has been fined £6.7m at the high court in Aberdeen after admitting health and safety failings over a rail crash that claimed three lives.
The train’s driver, Brett McCullough, 45, the conductor Donald Dinnie, 58, and a passenger, Christopher Stuchbury, 62, died in the derailment near Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire, on 12 August 2020.
The crash, the worst accident on Britain’s railways in 18 years, came after debris had washed on to the track from a wrongly built drainage system after heavy rain. Despite the conditions, the driver was not warned to reduce speed.
Network Rail’s fine was reduced from £10m because the firm admitted culpability on Thursday. It admitted a series of failings that resulted in the deaths, pleading guilty to a charge covering the period from 1 May 2011 to 12 August 2020.
These included failing to inform the driver that it was unsafe to drive the train at a speed of 75mph or caution him to reduce his speed on the day of the derailment. There were also failings in construction, inspection and maintenance of drainage assets and in adverse and extreme weather planning.
Prosecutors told the court that Network Rail failed to maintain or inspect the drain, which was built in 2011 by contractors from the bankrupted firm Carillion, in the years before the derailment. Had the drain had been properly constructed, it would have been able to cope with the gravel washed down by the heavy rain.
The court also heard that the train driver asked the Carmont area signaller if there were any speed restrictions in place due to the weather conditions. McCullough was told by the signaller: “Eh no, everything’s fine between myself and Stonehaven.”
Although McCullough pulled the emergency brake before hitting the gravel, there was insufficient time for it to have any impact on the train’s speed, the court heard.
Trish Ewen, 59, the partner of the train conductor, said the crash “turned her life upside down”, in a statement issued after Network Rail’s guilty plea on Thursday.
Ewen said Dinnie’s death was “incomprehensible”, adding: “Donald and I should be thinking about retiring together and planning the rest of our lives – instead he was taken and I’ve been left to exist alone.”
A Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) report published in March 2022 found that alongside errors in the drain’s construction, route controllers had “not been given the information, procedures or training needed” to manage the situation. Nor had Network Rail fully implemented safety measures drawn up after previous extreme weather events.
Network Rail said it would build upon the “significant changes” it had made since the incident, which it said had “helped us to manage the risk of severe weather to the network”.
About £1.6bn of its budget for the next four years is dedicated to improving the resilience of the railway due to the climate crisis, after rail bosses in Scotland and elsewhere warned that the problem posed an increasing threat to infrastructure.
