Britain: Unsafe signals fear

The BBC yesterday carried a report suggesting that the wiring of signals has become so fragile that merely toucing it could cause a failure. Engineers have been forbidden to even touch it for fear of causing a problem whereby signals could give train drivers incorrect indications. The problem is said to affect signals controlled from as many as 102 signal boxes.

Railway infrastructure owner Railtrack has stressed that there is no danger to passengers.

It was a wiring fault in signals that caused the accident at Clapham 10 years ago.