SOUTH Devon Railway bosses admitted today that safety on one of its moving trains was ‘badly compromised’ when a toddler nearly fell onto the track through a hole in a toilet floor.

The Buckfastleigh-based charity group has accepted that the three-year-old boy and his mother - who plucked her lad to safety just in time - could have suffered serious injury during the rail drama at Staverton this summer.

SDR has conceded ‘that something clearly went wrong’ - and that the incident should never have happened.

And it repeated its apology to the mother, son and family for the trauma they suffered after the ‘regrettable incident.’

The child escaped with minor bruising while he and his mother were treated for shock.

The SDR’s comments came in response this morning’s published report from the Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) which recommends the charity order an independent review to ‘address the deficiencies in its processes.’

It adds: ‘The RAIB believes that the investigation has also identified an important lesson likely to be applicable to other heritage railways, about applying appropriate standards for vehicle maintenance, to ensure that the examination regime which they have in place will identify the foreseeable deterioration of vehicles, before it reaches a stage that may affect safety.’

The report outlined the events which led up to the accident just outside Staverton station at 1.35pm on June 22.

‘The child entered the toilet, and as the door opened and the child stepped through it, he fell forward because the floor was missing in the compartment he had entered,’ the report recalled.

It added: ‘A more serious accident was only prevented by the quick reaction of the mother who grabbed the child’s arm and prevented him falling through the opening and onto the track below. The child suffered minor bruising, and both mother and child were shocked. The accident was reported immediately to the railway company, but the RAIB was not advised of what had happened until 25 June 2017.’

The offending toilet floor had been the subject of a carriage repair two months before the accident.

‘The location of the repair was difficult to gain access to and required the floor of the toilet cubicle to be removed.

‘The railway’s management decided that the door would be secured and notices placed on the door, allowing the carriage to enter service with the toilet floor missing,’ the report revealed.

RAIB found that the method of securing the door was ‘inadequate, so that over time the door became less secure to the extent it was possible for the child to open it.’

The report said: ‘The risk associated with the absence of the toilet floor was not sufficiently appreciated nor adequately managed after the carriage was allowed to enter service.’

And it complained that SDR ‘had no formal competence management assessment for staff involved in carriage maintenance.’

It concluded: ‘Both of these factors led to no-one detecting that the door had become unsecure.’

It found that SDR’s maintenance regime did not identify the extent of the deteriorating condition of the carriage structure, ‘and the railway’s fitness to run process was not being correctly applied.’

SDR confirmed today that it was working closely with the RAIB and the Office of Rail & Road (ORR) in their investigation.

A spokesman said: ‘As a result, the South Devon Railway has fully satisfied the requirements of the ORR’s Improvement Notice.

‘We have certainly learned lessons from this regrettable incident, and acted quickly to make the necessary improvements required by both the RAIB and ORR.’

The spokesman added: ‘In view of the ongoing ORR investigation it would not be appropriate for the South Devon Railway Trust to comment further at this time.’