Investigation 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.

At around 06:05 on 22 March 2024, a passenger train travelling at 56 mph (90 km/h) derailed on the approach to Grange-over-Sands station. The derailment occurred because a void had opened in the embankment on which the train was travelling, leading to the rails under the train losing support. The train was carrying four train crew and four passengers when it derailed. Nobody was injured, but significant damage was caused to both the train and the railway infrastructure.

RAIB’s investigation found that the void had been created because water had dislodged embankment material and carried it away. The water came from a pipe partially buried beneath the railway, which had been damaged during routine maintenance around 2 days before the derailment.

The damage to the pipe had been reported immediately to the railway control room by the maintenance staff involved. However, as a result of ineffective communications, no action was taken to stop the consequent leak. The pipe had been installed by Network Rail in 2016 as a temporary measure to assist in managing flood water in the surrounding areas, but on-call engineering staff were unaware that it was in use and carrying water at the time it was damaged.

Underlying factors to the accident were that those responsible for managing flood water at this location had not done so effectively, leading to the prolonged need to rely on temporary pumping arrangements. RAIB also identified that staffing levels at Network Rail’s Carnforth maintenance delivery unit did not provide sufficient resilience and had allowed non-compliance with the standards relating to the management of tamping to become normalised. In addition, Network Rail had allowed a temporary pumping arrangement to become permanent without applying the relevant asset management procedures.

One bit of their explanation that is hard to believe, and well outside the experience or expertise of most of us, is where the sand lost from the void went. Supposedly it went down below ground level and then inland and along the embankment westwards, through "solid" ground, and came up in the pond where water collects before (in theory) flowing away via the drain along the sea wall. That was 80 m³ of sand, in 52 hours, a distance of over 100 m! But the report claims that "the bulk of missing material from the embankment could be found in the pond".