Potters Bar coroner warns of risk of more fatal rail crashes

The signals are seen on red at Clapham Junction train station in London, March 31, 2010.

LONDON (Reuters) - A coroner warned that there remains a risk of further fatal rail disasters in Britain after an inquest ruled on Friday that a train crash which killed seven people in 2002 was caused by a points failure.

The accident, which also left more than 70 injured, occurred when a high-speed train from London came off the tracks at Potters Bar station north of the capital. One carriage ploughed into a platform before smashing into a bridge.

A jury inquest into the crash determined that problems with a set of points, along with a failure of maintenance firm Jarvis to carry out proper inspections were to blame.

After the verdict, the coroner Judge Michael Baker said he would make a report under "Rule 43."

This allows coroners to alert officials to evidence in an inquest which "gives rise to a concern that circumstances creating a risk of other deaths will continue to exist" and action was needed, Baker said.

"It is my intention to make a Rule 43 report and I hereby notify that intention," he said.

A points failure was also blamed for another high-speed rail crash in Cumbria in 2007 in which one woman died and 22 people were injured.

CONTINUED RISK OF "MAJOR DISASTER"

Bob Crow, head of the RMT rail union, said the coroner's view supported their ongoing concerns, adding they believed cost-cutting measures by operator Network Rail compromised safety.

"The judge has reinforced the point that RMT made in our evidence to the inquest, that there remains a continual risk of another major disaster on our railways as inspections and maintenance fall victim to financial cuts," he said.

"The judge's reference to a continuing risk of fatalities makes a nonsense of Network Rail's claims that they have learnt the lessons of Potters Bar and have got their house in order."

Network Rail said much had changed since the Potters Bar crash, and since it had taken over rail operations after the collapse of Railtrack in 2002.

"Private contractors are no longer involved in the day-to-day maintenance of the nation's rail infrastructure as Network Rail took this entire operation, involving some 15,000 people, in-house in 2004," a Network Rail spokesman said.

"All of the recommendations made by both the industry's own formal inquiry and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation have been actioned. Today the railways are safer than they have ever been."

Families of the seven victims at Potters Bar said the inquest jury should have been allowed to consider systemic failures rather than the specific causes of the crash.

"We have listened to a catalogue of inadequacies and shoddy maintenance, and shoddy management systems which should have been rectified a long time ago," Pat Smith, whose mother was killed in the crash, told reporters.

"We hope now that they'll put them right."

The families said there should have been a public inquiry which the previous government ruled out in 2005 after it said police, rail safety officials and the HSE had produced recommendations which had been acted upon.

That followed a decision by prosecutors to rule out any criminal charges against maintenance firm Jarvis or Railtrack.

(Editing by Steve Addison)