A YEAR ago today the railway industry was plunged into chaos by a crash that cost four lives and shook the network to its core. Within days it emerged that a broken rail was responsible for the derailment of the London-Leeds GNER service. But beyond the funerals and the mourning, the whole question of railway safety was thrown into question by the initial findings into the cause of the tragedy.

The broken rail responsible was the result of detected, but disregarded, gauge corner cracking - a problem, it emerged, which was rife across the country.

The Hatfield crash, however tragic, could have been so much worse. Trains all over the country, some carrying hazardous freight, were passing over cracked rails on a regular basis.

A Hatfield-type accident could have happened three years before on a train hauling low-grade nuclear waste in the North, or on a packed commuter train at rush hour on the way into London the following week.

Early Health and Safety Executive reports revealed safety fears were raised and ignored and that the problem was widespread - and known to be widespread - long before passengers' lives were snuffed out in the twisted wreckage.

But when Hatfield did actually happen, changes in the system were swift.

Within days one of the most comprehensive engineering projects undertaken on the nation's railways began.

Speed restrictions were placed on tracks all over the country and every train operator felt the knock-on effects.

Passengers were faced with long delays and cancellations and every newspaper carried reports about 'journeys from hell'. These took three or four times longer to complete and some passengers got so sick of the delays they staged 'onboard mutinies'.

Floods compounded problems for many operators and delays with the upgrading of Leeds Station meant a miserable festive season on the then Northern Spirit services.

Early findings blamed Railtrack for not maintaining the track correctly at Hatfield. Possible prosecutions of Railtrack staff remain in the hands of the Crown Prosecution Service, with bereaved families calling for the prosecution of Railtrack management - instead of huge pay-offs to some company bosses.

Assaults on staff, however, have also increased as levels of passenger expectation are not being met and tempers fray.

"First and foremost today, our thoughts are with the bereaved families and the injured who have continued to suffer as a result of the Hatfield tragedy," says Sue Nelson, the company's head of corporate affairs for the London North Eastern Zone.

"And let's not forget it's been a terrible year for the travelling public as well as Railtrack."

"Hatfield, followed closely by major flooding, caused huge inconvenience to passengers as well as being massively demoralising for our staff.

"In recent weeks we have just started to see some real improvement in performance of the network, thanks in no small measure to the efforts of staff who have - to use the chief executive's phrase - 'slogged their guts out' to turn the network round."

Remarkably the industry is expanding despite all the problems suffered on the network during the past 12 months; the number of passengers continues to increase as does the volume of freight on the rails.

Some companies have fared better than others, with a difficult time experienced particularly in the North.

For Arriva, the new name for Northern Spirit, it has been an especially tough year. If problems with flooding, Leeds delays and speed restrictions weren't enough, a driver shortage and a possible strike have also added to the misery of late.

York-based GNER were the hardest hit in the fallout from the Hatfield crash with journey times to London doubling.

"It was taking well over four hours to get to London from York," says GNER spokesman David Mallender. "We shortened those times as Railtrack made improvements, but it was July before journey times were back to their pre-Hatfield level.

"We had experienced passenger growth of 28 per cent in the past five years, but the last 12 months has been about winning back customers we lost immediately after Hatfield.

"The crash put our growth on hold. It has been a very difficult year with York being hit by the worst flooding for 400 years and two major train disasters."

He says the company hopes to return to growth next year with heavy investment in staff training to "maintain our position as an award-winning operator."

This year Railtrack racked up a massive compensation bill owing to GNER, the result of numerous delays and problems on the network. Every minute any train was late, a compensation payment would have to be made. And these payments have put extra pressure on signalmen to get trains running on time, thus creating "difficult working conditions".

One railman with 20 years' experience, who asked not to be named, spoke of the stress he and his colleagues suffer. "I don't want to go to work any more," he says. "I used to love this job, I used to love coming to work and really enjoyed my job. Now I dread it." He claims lives are being put at risk as more responsibility is placed on signalmen and extra pressure is applied to ensure services run on time.

Colleagues are having to take time off following near-misses and "working conditions are becoming unbearable," he explains.

His story is not unique. Staff at other companies are also facing problems.

Rail maintenance firm Jarvis have an ongoing pension dispute, contractors from different companies are working alongside former British Rail colleagues on different rates of pay and under differing conditions and train operators are competing for drivers.

Many problems are a hangover from the iniquities created by nationalisation, others from poor management. But whatever is happening to the railways it is fair to say that staff and passenger confidence is at its lowest ebb.

Railtrack has been taken into administration by the Government after amassing huge debts by overspending on upgrading the West Coast Main Line, and other projects.

The company is now being controlled by Ernst & Young and some critics are calling this 'back-door' re-nationalisation by the Labour Government.

Railtrack has so far spent £773 million on rail renewal and compensation payments to train operators for the delays and disruption.

But what of the future?

"We made massive inroads through the National Recovery Plan with the result that we now know more about the condition of our track asset than we ever have before," says Sue Nelson,

"However, you cannot ignore the under-investment this industry has constantly suffered since the end of the Second World War. It was not something that could be put right in five or even ten years. Whether people like it or not, huge investment is needed in the network - far more than the industry can ever hope to raise itself."

And the message to passengers?

"We still have a railway to run. Our staff - although angry and upset about the events of the past few days - are professional people who take pride in their job which, first and foremost, is to run a safe, reliable railway."

But as the bereaved and survivors from rail crashes gathered this afternoon at St Albans Cathedral for the Hatfield memorial service, one thing is clear - although rail travel remains the safest mode of transport available, too many people are dying on the trains.

The tragedy at Heck, near Selby, in February which killed ten and injured 75 could not have been foreseen, but Hatfield could, and should, have been.

Updated: 10:36 Wednesday, October 17, 2001