Brakes blamed for rail tragedy

The brakes on the runaway 17-ton railway wagon that killed four maintenance workers were not working, police revealed today.

When the wagon was uncoupled from an engineer's train, the brakes should have been applied automatically. Instead it ran along a line in Cumbria and hit a group of men working on the track.

The wagon's wheels had been wedged with two-inch-thick pieces of wood in an effort to hold it in place. But the weight of the wagon, loaded with lengths of rail, crushed the wood and it rolled downhill out of control.

A leaked report from Network Rail says that two maintenance workers tried to halt the wagon as it started to roll. Network Rail withdrew hundreds of similar flatbed wagons last Sunday on safety grounds - but has now ordered them back into service.

British Transport Police said tests had shown "the brakes fitted to the vehicle, which should have secured it, were not functional. Why they were not is the focus of continuing investigation." The trailer was examined at the Health and Safety Executive laboratory in Buxton, Derbyshire. A joint investigation by the BTP and HSE is ongoing.

The decision by chiefs to bring similar wagons back into service sparked fury today.

Union leaders immediately condemned it, saying their members should refuse to operate the wagons - used for carrying maintenance equipment and supplies - until the cause of the tragedy has been conclusively established.

A Network Rail spokeswoman said today that the wagons will be reintroduced only "with a number of safety conditions".

She said their brakes would have to be fully checked and tested, with a full test each time a wagon is uncoupled. Full documentation must be carried to show that all safety measures have been obeyed.

In addition, every time a wagon is "parked", special metal wedges will have to be jammed under the wheels to ensure it cannot move.

Mick Cash, deputy general secretary of the RMT rail union, said today: "We are calling on our members not to use the vehicles until the cause of the accident is conclusively established."

David Boardley, 71, stepfather of one of the railwaymen who died said Colin Buckley "died for scrap metal".

He claimed earlier safety systems has been "100 per cent safer than the way it is now - but cost more.

"The problem is the senior management in the railways is slack, from top to bottom. It is not the men on the tracks, or even the junior managers, but the people above them."