Civil engineering assets

Strategic risk chapter

1. Executive summary

The integrity of Civil Engineering Assets (‘Civils’) is fundamental to safe railway operation. Many earthworks and structures are over 150 years old and do not benefit from the resilience of modern designs. Having lasted for decades with little degradation, many are now near the end of their lifecycle, and their condition may deteriorate suddenly, particularly under the pressures of climate change and increasing rail traffic. Failures can be difficult to predict due to vulnerability to sudden, highly localised weather events, regardless of asset condition.

On 12 August 2020, a passenger train was derailed near Carmont, leading to the deaths of three people (Carmont RAIB report can be found here). The train struck material washed out from a drain following intense rainfall. This tragic event illustrated the challenges of managing Civil Engineering Assets safely at a time when weather patterns are changing.

Carmont RAIB report: Derailment of a passenger train at Carmont, Aberdeenshire on 12 August 2020 - ORR letter to RAIB dated 23 September 2024.

ORR’s strategy for regulating the risk from Civils assets is to promote optimal integrity of the asset base to minimise precursors to catastrophic failure. For legacy infrastructure, we recognise there are no quick, reasonably practicable routes to modern resilience thresholds. In the interim, our focus is to achieve the best understanding of the consequences of failure, so that mitigation can be appropriately prioritised and implemented.

ORR will support and challenge industry to:

ORR priorities for managing civil engineering asset risk. These include learning from Carmont, improving asset information, using intelligence to guide renewals, managing failure consequences, promoting balanced asset management, supporting engineering innovation and securing a systems-engineering approach

Dutyholders must:

Actions to strengthen the resilience of civil engineering assets. This includes improving asset information, understanding behaviour in extreme weather, applying risk-based renewals, maintaining balanced asset management, adopting innovation and remote monitoring, and managing failure consequences.