Rail firms fined £240K each over worker death

Two railway maintenance firms have been fined £240,000 each after a worker was killed helping to move a cherry-picker.

Neil Martin, 46 of Essex, was working at Edinburgh’s Waverly Station when the rear wheel of the plant ran over his leg and up onto his back, killing him.

His employer Border Rail and Plant and the machine’s manufacturer LH Access Technology admitted to health and safety offences and were fined in Edinburgh Sheriff Court today.

Sheriff Nigel Morrison QC said the operation to move the machinery was “not adequately planned” and had placed Mr Martin at an “unacceptable risk of serious injury”, reported the BBC.

"The method adopted to move the machine was inherently and obviously unsafe involving, as it did, a man walking between two moving wheels," said the sheriff.

Mr Martin, a fitter operator, was working on a job to remove the rail-mounted access platform from the railway station to have it repaired.

Border Rail argued that it could not have foreseen that the cherry-picker would be moved in the manner that it was, the BBC said.