This was a few days ago, but the
RAIB▸ have now announced their investigation:
I
nvestigation into the derailment of a passenger train at Grange-over-Sands, Cumbria, 22 March 2024.Published 28 March 2024
The rear of the train following the derailment.At around 06:05 hrs on 22 March 2024, a passenger train travelling between Preston and Barrow-on-Furness derailed after crossing over a section of unsupported track which gave way as the train passed. The track had become unsupported because a cavity had opened in the embankment on which the railway sits.
The train was travelling at 56 mph (90 km/h) when the accident occurred, with the front three carriages of the six-carriage train becoming derailed. The train struck a wall situated at the top of the embankment following the derailment. It remained upright and came to a stand with the rear of the train around 31 metres beyond the cavity.
There were four staff and four passengers on the train when the accident occurred. There were no injuries sustained by anyone onboard, although significant damage was caused to the train and to railway infrastructure.
Our investigation will seek to identify the sequence of events that led to the accident. It will also consider:
- the condition of the railway and nearby drainage
- the planning and management of relevant railway maintenance activities
- how the railway infrastructure at this location was managed in response to local flood risks
- any underlying management factors.
Like many accidents, this one raises some questions specific to it. Some those are about where and how the railway was built, across part of Morecambe Bay (the Winster estuary), by heaping up the sand and silt from the marsh. Obviously others are about what has happened, as "management" or otherwise, since.
The picture RAIB used looks bad; this one from Phil Barrett on X shows a scarily deep hole, and may be worse:
Why was there a big void under this embankment-cum-"sea"-wall? Note that there is no obvious place for that much stuff to have come out; the seaward side is stone faced and there is a closely observed ditch to the landward. Was a void always there, perhaps due to the difficulty of building a railway across a tidal estuary?
You can see the outlet hoses of some pumps
NR» have been running to try (with limited success) to stop the area behind it flooding; was that in any way a cause? Is nature getting its own back, resenting the Ulverston and Lancaster Railway's interference? The course of the Winster before it was diverted away ran just under here; is that relevant?
