RAILTRACK could be prosecuted for the leak of gallons of oil from a train into a stream, the Argus can reveal today.

About 170 gallons of hydraulic oil leaked from an engineer's train in Clayton Tunnel, near Hassocks station, in the early hours of last Thursday.

Railtrack carried out an immediate clean-up operation at the trackside and called environment protection officers from the Environment Agency.

But some of the oil appeared in a stream at Lagwood, a tributary of the River Adur, later the same morning.

Environment Agency officers contained the spill by setting up booms in the stream and putting down absorbents to prevent oil spreading. The booms were still in place yesterday.

Experts feared heavy

rain over the weekend would cause more oil to leak into

the stream, but their fears did

not materialise despite several downpours.

A spokeswoman for the

Environment Agency said: "It's an on-going investigation and

may lead to legal action against Railtrack.

"The maximum fine is £20,000 and such an investigation can often take about a month.

"Railtrack has received pollution prevention advice from Environment Agency officers."

Railtrack spokeswoman Alison Flynn said: "We have launched a separate internal investigation and we are talking to our contractors, Balfour Beatty Rail Maintenance.

"It's not a five-minute job. The train has to be taken out of

service and staff interviewed.

"Why it happened, whether it was a burst pipe or not, we just don't know at the moment.

"It's a relatively rare thing for Railtrack to be involved in anything like this."

She said Railtrack would wait until the incident had been fully investigated before deciding what measures, if any, were needed to prevent a similar incident in future.

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