The railway line between Aberdeen and Dundee in Scotland will reopen on 3 November, after it had to shut following the Stonehaven derailment in August.
Repair works, starting with building an access road to the remote site and clearing the wreckage, also included fixing the track, bridge, embankments and draining systems at the site. Specifically engineers:
- built a new 900m road and temporary bridges
- constructed a 600t crawler crane to remove the derailed train
- replaced 500m of damaged track and 70m of bridge parapets
- relaying 400m of telecommunications cables
- repairing the drainage systems and flood defences at the site
- fixing the embankment below the accident site
Alex Hynes, Managing Director of Scotland's Railway, said:We continue to work closely with accident investigators as we seek to learn the lessons of this tragedy and make our railway as safe as possible for our people and our passengers.
Our thoughts continue to be with the families and friends of Brett, Donald and Christopher and with the other passengers and colleagues who were affected by the accident.
Our engineers have been working around-the-clock to repair and reopen the railway and we thank all our customers and lineside neighbours for the understanding they have shown during this difficult and distressing event.
ScotRail has been running a shuttle between Aberdeen and Stonehaven as well as between Montrose and Edinburgh. There have also been replacement bus services between Aberdeen and Edinburgh.
Also read:
- Track Repairs Begin at Site of Stonehaven Derailment
- Network Rail to Begin Recovery of Stonehaven Derailment Wreckage
- Network Rail Launches Task Forces Following Stonehaven Derailment
- RAIB Publishes Stonehaven Derailment Update
