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Landslips caused by heavy rainfall will continue to affect Britain's railway lines聽because it cannot afford to strengthen them, Network Rail has said.

An interim report into last month's Stonehaven train crash, in which three people died, promised more investment in technology to predict landslips, but warned "it is simply not economically viable to strengthen all sub-standard infrastructure slopes."

As the crash wreckage was removed, the government-owned company, which owns and operates Britain's railway infrastructure, said it was working with meteorologists to understand how real-time information can improve how it copes with severe weather.

It is also looking into how to use technology and data to make better decisions about where action is most urgently required.

The amount of money spent strengthening the railway's resilience to extreme weather will rise to £1.3bn between 2019 and 2024, up from £952 million over the previous five years and £550 million in 2009-2014, the Department of Transport, which commissioned the report, announced.

The increased investment means "many failures" will be prevented and that areas with "the highest risk of failure and consequence" are targeted for action, Network Rail said.

But, it admitted, "we expect there will still be earthwork failures as a result of challenging weather".

Since the Aberdeenshire disaster, 584 sites which share similar characteristics have been inspected, the report added.

Around one percent of them were found to have defects that have "deteriorated and require action sooner than originally planned".

Network Rail has also introduced emergency changes to policy during severe weather or reports of unstable ground.

Signallers must stop all trains on affected lines until an inspection has been carried out by "a competent engineer".

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said: "The independent investigation will enable us to understand exactly what went wrong, and make sure it does not happen again."

Network Rail chief executive Andrew Haines said: "Earthworks and drainage infrastructure, some of which are more than 150 years old, prove to be a real challenge as the country experiences more heavy rainfall and flooding."

Driver Brett McCullough, conductor Donald Dinnie and passenger Christopher Stuchbury were killed when a ScotRail service came off the tracks in Stonehaven following heavy rain on 12 August.

Network Rail said the train hit a pile of "washed-out rock and gravel before derailing".

A preliminary report by the Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB) found that following reports of a landslip, the signaller cleared the train to travel back in the direction it had come from.

After reaching speeds of 73mph (117kph) it struck a different landslip and derailed.

Network Rail's income was a little over £8bn, according to its latest accounts, while its pre-tax profits stood at £375m.