RAILTRACK is considering legal action to prevent strikes next month by supervisors who will today help management provide more than one in four trains during the first 48-hour stoppage by signal workers.

(First Edition)

I HAVE known John Smith's name since I was old enough to hear politics talked of, in the days when I was a Dunoon schoolboy and he was a bright young socialist fresh out of Glasgow University. His career since then spoke of great achievement, but perhaps a greater achievement still was that, spiritually, he had never moved an inch from the roots which we happened to share.

THE Government is set to press ahead with privatising air traffic control services despite widespread fears about the safety implications.

A political row blew up after the disclosure that Robert Horton, chairman of Railtrack, and one of the top public appointees to oversee the privatised rail network, would be paid pounds 121,800 a year for a three-day week. Brian Wilson, Labour's transport spokesman, said it would 'sicken' railwaymen who faced job losses and wage cuts.

SIR ROBIN BUTLER, the Cabinet Secretary, has ordered an investigation into a Scottish Office fiasco over the sacking of a senior health service official.

CHANGING the clocks to match the time in Europe would save 140 deaths and 520 serious injuries on the roads each year, according to a new study.

WHAT COULD be simpler than operating the Gatwick Express? Seven trains run 27 miles between two points, with a captive market. There are few less complex parts of the British Rail network - and it makes a profit. So it is not difficult to understand why ministers have decided that the Gatwick Express should become the first franchise to be offered to the private sector, as early as next year. From the safety of a Department of Transport desk, it must seem scarcely more complicated than an old Hornby Dublo.

BRITISH RAIL'S new timetable comes into force today showing reductions in several services but not yet reflecting the 25 per cent cut in subsidy from the Government, writes Christian Wolmar.

BRITISH RAIL is to be forced to hand over its 11,000 passenger locomotives and carriages to a series of leasing companies when the privatisation process starts on 1 April next year, writes Christian Wolmar.

WORLD PARTY

SIR BOB Reid, chairman of British Rail, was at the centre of another row last night after clashing with ministers over his admission to Labour that rail services will be reduced in May, writes Stephen Castle.

BRIAN WILSON'S case against the unrestricted use of flags of convenience ('Flagging the way to disaster', 10 January) could have been made even stronger if he had pointed out that Liberia has had no effective government for more than two years and that its present interim regime is again under attack from Charles Taylor's NPFL rebels. Are any safety standards at all being applied in Liberia?

THE MORE that becomes known about the ill-fated Braer, the more it acquires classic flag-of-convenience symptoms. The Liberian-registered, American-owned tanker had been through a couple of name changes and a plethora of managements while carrying a discontented, low-paid international crew.