British Transport Police said officers have been called to the scene just south of Wickford station shortly after 2pm following reports that the rear carriages of a train had left the rails. No injuries were reported this time, though images from the scene showed a damaged overhead line support. Greater Anglia suspended services between Shenfield and Southend Victoria while engineers assessed the track.
It came less than 24 hours after Thursday's crash near Lewes, where three carriages of a Southern service running from London Victoria to Eastbourne derailed and overturned. Twenty passengers were injured, two of them seriously. Both incidents happened during one of the hottest weeks of the year, with air temperatures in the affected areas reported well above 30°C.
Neither Network Rail nor the Rail Accident Investigation Branch has confirmed a cause for either crash. RAIB inspectors were sent to Lewes on Thursday; it's not yet publicly confirmed whether a team has also gone to Wickford. Heat-related track buckling, where expanding welded rail loses its alignment under the weight of a train, is the theory engineers keep returning to, and one Network Rail has flagged for several summers running.
For brokers and underwriters, the timing is the story as much as the cause. Insurance Business reported within hours of Thursday's crash that the Lewes incident was already putting rail liability cover under fresh scrutiny, with comparisons already being drawn to the 2020 Carmont crash, whose findings went on to reshape how Network Rail prices and manages weather-related earthworks risk. A second derailment before that investigation has even reported back won't do much to settle anyone's nerves ahead of renewal.
It also sits inside a wider conversation this market has had all summer. WTW's Torolf Hamm has argued that UK infrastructure is still being run to design standards drawn up for a climate that has since moved on, "It's systemic,” he said in an earlier interview. “It will happen year on year again. Starting to work with this new status quo of volatility is perhaps where there needs to be more education and understanding of what climate change means," he said. Others have pointed to "temperature whiplash" — sharp swings between mild and extreme conditions — as harder to price than heat alone. Actuaries have warned separately that climate risks are moving faster than planning models can absorb.
What caused Wickford and Lewes is for RAIB to determine, and a preliminary finding isn't likely for weeks. But for anyone weighing rail liability, BI or contingent BI exposure this renewal season, two derailments in 24 hours carries more weight than one. Expect cedants and reinsurers to start asking how inspection regimes and heat thresholds are being reassessed, and whether historical loss data on rail infrastructure still holds up in a summer like this one.
