Railtrack 'fighting losing battle' against gauge corner cracking

More than a quarter of the new track points installed since the fatal Hatfield crash a year ago have developed the type of fault that caused the express train to derail, sources at Railtrack said on Friday.

They suggested that the company was "fighting a losing battle" against the problem of gauge corner cracking, which prompted the worst disruption the network has seen in peacetime. "Incompetent installation and inadequate maintenance" by contractors working for Railtrack had caused the difficulties, the insiders said.

They said that new track switches and crossings, which allowed trains to move from one line to another, "were being damaged by gauge corner cracking'', a phenomenon in which fissures in the metal caused the rail to shatter.

The problem could mean another massive bill for Railtrack at a time when Stephen Byers, the Transport Secretary, is trying to deal with shareholders protesting at the Government's plan to transform the company into a "not-for-profit'' trust.

After the Hatfield derailment a year ago next Wednesday, in which four people died, Railtrack management embarked on a nationwide engineering project to deal with gauge corner cracking, leading to speed restrictions throughout the system and causing delays and cancellations only previously experienced during the Second World War. The emergency maintenance drive meant that cash was diverted from other improvements to the network. At the height of the project, engineers ordered more than 1,200 speed restrictions – a figure now down to fewer than 700.

That is, though, almost 160 more than were in place before Hatfield, according to Railtrack – and about 400 more on average than during the days of British Rail. When Railtrack took over maintenance of the west coast main line in 1994 no speed limits were in effect. Now it has 90, although some of these are due to work on upgrading the route.

While train services started to improve this summer, evidence is growing that they have begun to deteriorate again because of engineering work. The number of speed restrictions means that any bad weather this winter will cause havoc with the timetable.

Many of the present speed limits have not been imposed because of gauge corner cracking itself but, because the company has concentrated on dealing with the phenomenon, it has been forced to delay other essential work.

A Railtrack spokesman said that the purpose of the "national recovery programme" was not to eliminate gauge corner cracking but to reduce it to a manageable level. He said that the company had predicted gauge corner cracking would appear on the new track installations. The company insisted that the latest problem with switches and crossings was relatively moderate and that measures being taken meant that the difficulty would not lead to further speed restrictions or affect services.