One man halts 45,000 commuters

It's quite a mistake for one man to make. A signalman brought chaos to thousands of commuters, and damaged a major railway line, after forgetting to switch the points on the tracks.

His failure to press the right button meant a train came off the rails and blocked the lines between Liverpool Street station and Cambridge. Three of the train's four carriages were derailed, leading to a day and a half 's repair work and extensive disruption to around 45,000 commuters and passengers heading for Stansted airport.

One industry insider said: "We are talking about a bill of upwards of £50,000 in damage to trains, track and clearing up. Engineers had to work all night and heavy lifting gear was brought in." And that's not counting the additional cost to businesses of staff being horrendously late for work.

The derailment close to Cheshunt station in Hertfordshire happened at lunchtime on Monday. Travel home from Liverpool Street was ruined that evening and for most of yesterday. The Stansted Express was cancelled and train operater West Anglia Great Northern had to run shuttle services and lay on emergency buses.

The error was worryingly simple.

The 13.19 Liverpool Street to Cambridge service, with up to 200 passengers, was approaching Cheshunt when it was halted by a red signal.

The minutes passed by and the signal remained at red. Finally, after 15 minutes, the driver contacted the local signal control to ask what was wrong.

He was told there was an electrical fault and, as the signal is designed to do, it had reverted to red. The driver, in accordance with rail regulations, then applied for permission to pass through the red light with caution, and was given it by the signaller. Driving strictly by the book, he moved forward at below 20 mph.

The signaller, though, had forgotten one small thing.

Earlier, he had set the points - just in front of the train stopped at the red - for a southbound service coming from Cambridge towards London via the Southbury loop line. This train passed in front of the one stopped at the signal.

And the signalman forgot to set the points back again ready for the northbound 13.19.

As it moved off and over the points, the first three carriages promptly came off the track. Because the train was going so slowly, only one passenger suffered a minor injury. Thousand of others, however, indirectly suffered massive disruption.

The signaller was not suspended from duty but is the subject of an internal inquiry. It is understood he has admitted his mistake.

A spokeswoman for Railtrack, his employer, would only say the derailment was "the result of human error by the signaller".

Hard left on track for RMT