MTR Says XRL Train Not To Blame For Derailment

The MTR Corporation says an initial investigation into the partial derailment of an Express Rail Link train during a trial run on Tuesday, has found that it might be due to a deformed structure underneath a maintenance track at the Shek Kong depot.

The wheels of the final carriage slipped off the tracks, after the train returned to the station.

Chief of Operating Francis Li says they didn’t find any problems with the train itself: "There was a slight curve in the maintenance track, and because of the curve there may be some lateral forces exerted on the supporting system, possibly causing some deformation."

"So that is nothing related to the maintenance of the track or the train."

Mr Li also played down concerns that the incident was only discovered two hours after the train carriage had gone off the tracks, saying that the incident only happened after the train returned to the depot following a trial run.

He added that there's no system in place at the depot to alert the driver of such derailments, but emphasised that staff reported the problem immediately after they discovered it during an inspection.

"First of all, as I mentioned, there's nothing abnormal from the driver's perspective. And when our inspector carried out the inspections around the depot, he found [the derailment], and took the initiative to report to our control centre. So we immediately carried out our follow-up works."

Terry Wong, the rail operator's general manager of infrastructure maintenance, says there's no evidence to suggest that the same problem could happen on the main line. He said the supporting structure is only used for the four maintenance tracks:

"We only have four maintenance tracks that have this kind of support structure. And there's only one maintenance track with a curve connected with it. So we do not see any relationship that this kind of maintenance track design will have an impact on the main running line."

The MTR Corporation said it will submit a report to the government as soon as its investigation is completed. Trial runs for the high-speed trains have been suspended following the incident.