Warned ten days before disaster

The inquiry into the Potters Bar rail disaster took a dramatic twist today.

It emerged that a pair of nuts on the points which caused the crash were spotted lying beside the track during an inspection on 1 May, 10 days before Friday's derailment.

They were replaced by maintenance workers and tightened up but came loose and came off again. A total of four nuts were found to have come off, it emerged this afternoon from the official investigation.

Dr Allan Sefton, head of the Railway Inspectorate, said there was a "possibility" that the missing nuts had been taken off by track staff and not replaced - a basic and catastrophic-human error. The other possibility is that they vibrated off.

In each case the nuts - two inches wide - were found underneath the bolts. Frank Hyland, in charge of the crash inquiry, said that in one instance two of the nuts were found "sitting neatly" underneath their respective bolt.

In the other instance the two nuts were found in the "immediate vicinity" from where they had been removed or fallen, said Mr Hyland.

The weakened set of points led to the crash in which seven people died and 90 were injured when the last carriage of the 12.45 from King's Cross hurtled into the station platform at nearly 100mph.

More bolts have been found loose on other sets of track points inspected as a consequence of the derailment, safety chiefs revealed this afternoon. Following the crash Railtrack inspected 867 further sets nationwide.

Dr Bob Smallwood, HM Director of Railways, said that of bolts inspected on other sets of points "some did require tightening".

Asked exactly how many Dr. Smallwood said: "A handful... it may be one or two handfuls."

The new evidence raises massive implications for the standards of rail safety and questions Transport Secretary Stephen Byers's claim that the tragedy was a " oneoff ". Jarvis Rail, the maintenance company responsible, today admitted that a pair of nuts was found to be missing.

A spokesman said: "Having seen them off, the maintenance workers tightened them as much as they possibly could. Those nuts were among those found to be off after the accident."

It is not known whether the loose nuts were merely tightened up again or new ones installed. If the old nuts were tightened rather than replaced they may have been more likely to come loose.

A report being compiled by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) will reveal problems with the way the set of points was maintained. It also increases demands for a reversal of Railtrack's policy of using outside contractors for maintenance. Contractors-have also been accused of sub-contracting their work to unqualified staff recruited "from the streets" although there is no suggestion this was the case at Potters Bar.

Bob Crow, head of the RMT union and a former London Underground track worker, said poor track conditions could have caused vibration of the points which made the nuts work loose.

The Evening Standard revealed yesterday that the points had also been found to be suffering from corner gauge cracking - tiny cracks in the rail which can lead it to snap. This was the cause of the disaster at Hatfield five miles down the same line in October 2000 in which four died.

Commuters using the line have complained of "white knuckle rides" due to the poor condition of the track. But GNER today ruled out reports that trains had lurched violently in the Potters Bar area. Meanwhile, Railtrack admitted it has not been able to find any trace of warnings said to have been made by a worker three weeks before the tragedy. The worker made a statement to police yesterday saying bolts were missing from the points.

Railtrack chief executive John Armitt said: "We have not been able to identify any record which shows that we received any particular warnings about the state of the track and the state of the points in particular."

The chairman of the Strategic Rail Authority, Richard Bowker, today supported the decision of Mr Armitt to continue to use contractors to maintain the national network. It also emerged that a pilot scheme in which Railtrack takes greater control of contractors could be adopted nationwide if successful.

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