Balfour Beatty and rail partners fined ￡600,000

摘要

Three rail companies have been criticised by a judge for their "careless and neglectful" approach to safety on part of the project to upgrade the West Coast Main Line, and were each fined ￡200,000 as a result. Balfour Beatty Rail Projects Ltd and GT Railway Maintenance Ltd, who were carrying out the work on the line near Birmingham as a joint venture, together with Elec-Track Installations Ltd, were prosecuted by the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) over an incident in July 2003. Warwick Crown Court, sitting on 23 and 24 April, heard that three men were working in an SRS vehicle - a flat-bed lorry adapted to travel along rails and featuring a hydraulic basket. As they were raised up towards overhead lines, which carried 25,000 volts, one of the men received a shock, while the other two narrowly avoided injury by jumping from the basket. The victim sustained 30-per-cent burns over his body and had to have his right leg amputated below the knee.