Ballast lifting in train wake

Standing on the up fast platform at Stevenage the other morning,
I and a few other folk were surprised to be almost hit by
a piece of flying track ballast which appeared to be lifted in
the wake of a GNER southbound HST passing through. I and
the others were standing well back from the platform edge
(in fact, I was about as near to the middle of the island as
it's possible to be).

As the train approached, I looked up and was aware of something
blurred and moving fast in the air near the end of the train.
As the trailing engine approached, the two objects appeared
to break free of the wake when it was about two carriage
lengths away from me. One flew across to the other platform and
possibly hit the platform edge (there was a loud crack) and the
other flew at a slight angle, about 1 foot above platform
height initially, towards me. There wasn't really time to move,
but it hit the surface, bounced and came to rest bouncing
around in the lifts behind me.

I've never seen anything like this happen, and I presume if it
was frequent there would be lots of people getting agitated
about the safety aspects. So how common is it ?
.

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