Railtrack told to tighten up checks

Railtrack has been ordered to make dramatic improvements to the way it controls maintenance contractors working on tracks and signals.

Safety chiefs say they will be keeping a special watch "to check that these improvements are being made".

The new checks emerged 24 hours after a report by the Evening Standard revealed instances of unsupervised and badly trained workers being used by contractors to maintain the network.

The report and the latest findings by the Health and Safety Commission into the way maintenance contractors are used has again highlighted safety fears among those using the network.