MERSEYRAIL was ordered to pay out more than £100,000 after a runway train careered onto the tracks.

The firm appeared at Liverpool Crown Court yesterday after the empty train derailed near Kirkdale, in June, 2009 – but only after missing a working commuter train by five seconds.

The franchise operator, Merseyrail Electrics 2002 Ltd, was fined £85,000 and ordered to pay costs of nearly £21,000 after admitting health and safety breaches.

The charges followed an investigation by the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) into the incident.

The train was withdrawn from service and stabled at Kirkdale depot on June 29, 2009, because it had developed a power fault.

The next day, engineers took it off the main power line while they fixed it, but once the job was done left the train in gear and hooked up to the main line.

The runaway train left the depot, reaching around 30mph at one point, before potential disaster was averted by a device that automatically applied the brakes and diverted it to another track next to the main line.

At the end of the track, the runaway carriages hit and demolished the buffer stop and a wall before blocking the passenger train line.