Railway firms `putting profit before safety'

MORE RAIL disasters are "inevitable" unless the privatised train companies radically improve their safety procedures, the inquiry into the Southall crash in which seven people died will be told.

Britain's biggest rail inquiry since the Clapham disaster in 1988 was due to open today with a solicitor for the victims' families claiming that train operators and Railtrack are putting commercial interests before safety.

Sean Twomey, whose firm is representing 35 survivors of the crash and the families of two of the dead, will tell the inquiry that the "fragmentation" of the rail industry has disrupted the co-ordination of safety management to the extent that lives are still needlessly being put at risk. He told The Independent: "Rail companies' vested interests are preventing them from paying proper attention to safety. If the system is not improved, more accidents are inevitable."

Mr Twomey's claims come after it was revealed that in the eight months before the Southall crash the train company involved allowed its high- speed trains to run without a crucial alarm system on 63 occasions. The advance warning system (AWS) alarm, a klaxon that sounds in the driver's cabin, failed prior to the Southall crash involving a Great Western Trains express, when the driver drove through a red light. He had been packing a bag.

Statements from British Transport Police reveal that of the 63 incidents, only 10 were reported to the track operator Railtrack, which is supposed to investigate. Mr Twomey will tell the inquiry, chaired by Professor John Uff QC, of serious concerns about the way in which the rail companies investigate cases where safety procedures fail.

Seven people died and 150 were injured at Southall, west London, when a Great Western express from Swansea to Paddington went through a red signal and hit a goods train at nearly 125mph, two years ago yesterday. Great Western was fined a record pounds 1.5m over the crash. Manslaughter charges against Great Western, and the driver, Larry Harrison, were dropped in July. The inquiry is expected to last up to 10 weeks.