Media centre

Tuesday 11 Aug 2015

CUMNOCK DERAILMENT: RECOVERY WORKS UPDATE

Region & Route:

Scotland’s Railway: Scotland

Engineers have now finished constructing a temporary haul road to the derailment site at Logan, near Cumnock, as preparations continue to remove 16 derailed freight wagons and a locomotive from the site this week.

With the 350m long road and associated operating pad now in place, engineers will assemble the 1,000 ton crane required to remove and re-rail the wagons and locomotive.

Soft ground conditions, coupled with the need to strengthen and widen an existing access road, have complicated an already difficult project, but engineers expect to begin removing wagons from the site on Thursday, with all vehicles clear of the line by late Friday.

Works will then continue throughout the weekend to repair extensive damage caused to the track by the incident.

The project remains on course for completion on Sunday with passenger services expected to resume on Monday, August 17.

A ScotRail Alliance spokesman said: “Our teams are working hard in extremely challenging conditions to recover the wagons, complete track repairs and resume services as quickly as possible.

“We understand the inconvenience this incident has caused to customers and are committed to doing everything possible to make sure we can resume services through the site from Monday.”