40949 Hazardous authorised walking route at Crewe station

May 2010 in Network Rail and Suppliers

Station and platform Work environment North West

Members of staff at Crewe station are concerned about the continual flooding of an authorised walking route creating hazardous conditions.  The walking route in question is a subway which leads from the staff car park to the station. The reporter comments that the subway floods with sewage contaminated water roughly every two weeks which has attracted vermin to the area. The depth of the water can range from a couple of inches to a foot deep and even when there has been no rainfall the subway still floods. Besides the obvious health risks from the contaminated water, the reporter is also concerned about staff slipping in the wet conditions.

The reporter is aware that water has been pumped out of the subway on a number of occasions but adds that it returns in a couple of days. Are any long term solutions to the problem being considered by Network Rail?

Response from Network Rail

Network Rail would like to thank the reporter for bringing their concerns to our attention.

The fault had been reported to Network Rail's property helpdesk. Upon investigation into the flooding of the subway by Network Rail, it was found that the subway sump pumps were not working properly.
Prior to this CIRAS report, Network Rail had raised the issue of maintaining these sump pumps to Virgin Trains. As a precaution and due to the hazardous nature of the waste material and the risk of slips, trips and falls Network Rail have replaced the pumps. The operations and maintenance manuals for the new sump pumps have been issued to Virgin Trains to assist in future maintainance.