30/09/2013 Inside Out South East

Is the Balcombe tunnel safe? We investigate the partial collapse on

the London to Brighton line. It was certainly a dangerous incident and

we would not want to find ourselves in that situation again. Clearly,

something has gone terribly wrong, so it's false economy not to get the

job done properly. Face—to—face with the Saxons of

Eastbourne. Oh, wow. Wow. Quite emotional.

And rescued from the Goodwin Sands — behind the scenes at the restoration

of a German bomber. Only this morning, we found this on the

propeller. You can see where the sea life has washed off and it reveals

what we believe to be a bullet hole. I'm Natalie Graham with untold

stories closer to home. From all around the South East, this is

Inside Out. Hello. We're underneath the

spectacular Balcombe viaduct in West Sussex and we're here because we are

not far from the Balcombe tunnel. Two years ago, part of the roof

collapsed and we have been asking how passengers' lives were put at

risk on one of the busiest commuter routes in the country. Mark Norman

reports. Early on a Friday morning, two years

ago, engineers made a routine journey through the Balcombe tunnel

on the busy London to Brighton railway line. But this was to be

anything but routine. Part of the tunnel roof had collapsed. The

tunnel was immediately closed, journeys were delayed... And we now

know lives could have been lost. And so begins this Rail Accident

Investigation Board report. Three metal girders had come loose, they

were hanging less than a foot above the train.

Extremely thankful for the crew on the engineering train, that they

spotted the failure. It was certainly a dangerous incident And

we would not want to find ourselves in that situation again. But is that

good enough? The detail in this report is shocking. Network Rail

knew that bolts used to support the roof had been missing or broken for

three years. At any one point, one of the huge steel girders could have

fallen onto passing trains. And potentially thousands of lives were

put at risk. We have spoken to a Network Rail engineer who wants to

remain anonymous but he has told us that if just one girder had hit a

train, passengers would have died. You are looking at a fatality. If

that steel bar would have come, it would have been spinning around. It

would have just been spinning round. It would have gone through windows,

God forbid. Ripped it, ripped the train — a whole carriage, half a

carriage. There would have been fatalities there.

So what exactly happened? Using the report, we have recreated the

situation in 2011. This false roof is used to manage the water that

constantly drips into the Balcombe tunnel. It is supposed to have been

checked and maintained regularly but it wasn't. Three of

checked and maintained regularly but girders that support the roof had

partially collapsed. They were left hanging, just 11 inches above the

top of the train. When safety staff went into the tunnel, they found

more than a dozen bolts were missing. Bolts that were supposed to

be fixing the beams to the wall but had in fact either been missing,

broken or not replaced for years. Worryingly, the report tells us that

as far back as 2008, engineers were telling the company things were

going wrong. But for three years, what is described as inadequate

reporting meant the problems weren't fixed and bolts weren't replaced. We

now know these three beams were just inches away from hitting trains that

travel through the tunnel at 70 miles per hour.

The company acknowledge that things weren't working properly at the time

and that their staff weren't being given the right support. Our

processes let our colleagues and the travelling public down at that

point. Communication wasn't appropriate and our processes

weren't in place in a manner that allowed staff to report the failures

of that nature in the right place at the right time to make sure they get

recovered and repaired expeditely. Perhaps most damning of all is the

fact we are told the engineer responsible for 120 tunnels,

including Balcombe, wasn't suitably qualified and wasn't given the right

support. The report says he did not recognise the problem, didn't

appreciate the risk and didn't consider more widespread concerns.

Our whistle—blower, who has worked for decades on the tracks

Our whistle—blower, who has worked country, including inside many of

our Victorian tunnels, says the problem of inexperienced staff is

still an issue and the passengers' lives are still being put at risk.

These tunnel should be inspected more often than what we're doing now

and with competent and knowledgeable people, not someone who... No

disrespect, but not someone who has just come out of university or

college with a degree in one hand and a torch in another. They haven't

got enough men as it is on the ground to do track examinations.

What used to be examined three or four times a week is now examined in

some parts once a week or once a fortnight. That is... That is... You

know, it is a bit worrying. The London to Brighton line is one of

the busiest in the country. More than 70 million passengers a year

travel on the main route and 2,500 trains a week pass through the

Balcombe tunnel. And the fact that so many of us want

to travel by train is part of the problem for Network Rail. The

company have very little time to get onto the railway between the last

train at night and the first train in the morning. More and more people

want to travel, more and more people want to travel early in the morning,

late at night, said there is continual pressure on the window of

opportunity in the night—time to get on the track and so the railway

staff are always fighting that tension between running trains for

passengers and finding the time to work on the track. When the Balcombe

tunnel was closed after the roof collapsed, this was the scene at

stations up and down the line. But while passengers don't want this

sort of chaos, they do want a safe railway. Often, we don't get to hear

of the sort of smaller incidents and this one is obviously a major one.

Clearly, something has gone terribly wrong. It is maybe not the people

who are maintaining it themselves but perhaps those who oversee it.

Because it should be closely monitored. I mean, these things

should never happen. The London to King's Lynn service had derailed at

nearly 100 miles an hour... This is not the first time Network Rail have

come in for criticism. The company was fined £3 million for lapses in

health and safety that let to the Potters Bar train crash in 2002. And

while the authors of this latest report don't apportion blame, they

did tell us they'd asked Network Rail to...

Potters Bar was in 2002. The Balcombe tunnel incident in 2011.

But let's bring things bang up—to—date. This document has just

been published by the rail regulator and in it they highlight issues with

the track in Sussex, issues with planned maintenance by Network Rail.

But the company have insisted things are better and that the Balcombe

tunnel is safe. From my perspective, I can assure the

sure the general II I c II I c

Mark Norman reporting. Coming up on Inside Out...

So here I am, crouched precariously right inside the ghost of the

Dornier, surrounded by bits of the Goodwin Sands, shells and pebbles.

Each day, more comes off and each day a little bit more of the story

is revealed. You may remember last year we met a

team of archaeologists examining hundreds of Saxon skeletons that had

been buried in Eastbourne. Now we have been back to see some flesh

added to those ancient bones. Kent and Sussex were once

Anglo—Saxon kingdoms. So, like many towns in the South East, Eastbourne

has a rich Anglo—Saxon heritage. Until recently, though, much of that

heritage, in the form of 200 skeletons, were hidden in cardboard

boxes in the town hall. But a team of archaeologists and volunteers

have been steadily working their way through each box. Piece by piece,

they have been building up a picture of the people who lived in the South

East more than 1,200 years ago. After studying every skeleton in the

collection, Hayley Forsyth, from the Eastbourne Ancestors Project, has

chosen the three skulls to be examined in more detail, to find out

when these people lived, what they ate and what they looked like.