Councillor disappointed by crossing failures

Further failures on the Newark to Nottingham railway line have led a councillor to label the situation as disappointing.

Barriers at Rolleston broke at about 2pm on Monday, forcing Network Rail to send an employee who lifted and lowered them manually from 3pm. The fault, caused by a pump unit that was not working, was fixed at 6pm.

It follows a fault at Fiskerton on August 27, when barriers were stuck in the up position. Despite flashing warning lights, at least ten motorists drove over the line.

There have also been problems at Newark Castle station crossing.

The line has been plagued by technical issues since Network Rail moved to what it said was a state-of-the-art system in November when several crossings, including Newark, were no longer manually operated.

Mrs Sue Saddington, a district councillor, said she was fed up of the ongoing difficulties.

“It has been a disappointing improvement — it is not an improvement at all,” she said.

“Almost a year after introducing the system Network Rail still doesn’t have the crossings working properly.

“They have also been extremely tardy in bringing this problem to a conclusion, but I am hopeful that we will now see some progress.”

'Serious and unacceptable impact'

Network Rail said it was basing a responder on the route to reach problems faster, but they also had to travel to other problems in the East Midlands if needed.

A statement said: “We do not take lightly the serious and unacceptable impact that level crossing failures are having on communities and businesses on the line.

“Several major investigations have been carried out on the equipment to determine why we are experiencing such a high volume of failures.

“No single underlying fault has been identified, but during the past two weeks we have replaced several key components of the crossing at Newark Castle to improve its reliability.

“Safety is our priority and the equipment is designed to fail safe. Usually this means the barriers fail safe in the down position, but if the crossing detects an obstacle on the tracks, which could be a car, bike or person, then the fail safe position is for the barriers to remain up for that obstacle to exit the crossing and avoid becoming trapped.

“While the ongoing situation with the crossings is clearly unacceptable we urge all motorists, cyclists and pedestrians not to enter a level crossing when the right warning lights are showing.”