Although the Australian Rail Track Corporation was not resourced to actively participate in the design or commissioning phases of the Cootamundra re-signalling project, greater involvement by the Australian Rail Track Corporation (local knowledge of site geography and layout) during these phases may have assisted the South Improvement Alliance engineers in detecting the design error.
Where a signalling design has implicit safety requirements that need to be validated onsite, field testers should be provided with comprehensive check notes and/or clearly annotated information that ensures specific testing requirements are not omitted.
Where a design involves complex signalling arrangements, it may be beneficial to involve the designing engineer during the final onsite field testing phase as they have the best understanding of the interlocking principles. This places them in a strong position to identify any design omissions or deficiencies that may not have been evident during earlier phases of a project.
A record of the welds carried out at the 8.351 km point at Tottenham on the 30 January 2009 was not documented in accordance with the requirements of Civil Engineering Circular 3/87.
Regular monitoring and accurate measurement of rail creep was not carried out at the east end of the curve where train 6MB2 derailed in accordance with Civil Engineering Circular 3/87 - 70.2 and 70.3. Creep monuments were not installed on the east end of the curve following the work to convert the passing loop track to mainline operation in July 2008.
The section of track where train 6MB2 derailed, was previously utilised as the Tottenham standard gauge passing loop. It was not stress tested after slewing and welding when it was converted to mainline operation on 28 July 2008, 5 months before the derailment.
Punch marks were not made on the rail and documented with references to monuments at the 9 km mark following the realignment of track west of the Ashley Street rail bridge. This omission precluded the detection of rail creep that may have been present during the October 2008 maintenance inspection.
