£7m wreck recreates our rails

A German train maker has spent £7 million damaging its test track to recreate the dilapidated condition of the commuter routes of southern England.

Siemens, which is building 800 new vehicles for South West Trains, inserted gaps between sections of rails and placed blocks of dry ice on the tracks to simulate winter weather. To ensure authenticity, they also made track heights and gauge widths uneven and installed an erratic electricity supply.

They even left pieces of glass fibre on the rails to replicate leaves on the line. The company says it decided to wreck its test track near Dusseldorf, built at a cost of £50 million, because it wants to ensure there are "no surprises" for its trains when they enter service in the next two years.

Their engineers used routes to and from Waterloo as their model for the shabby state of the network. They ran data-monitoring trains over the lines to build a detailed picture of the exact condition of the rail network.