Blame for the Grayrigg train crash very quickly fell on to a suspect set of points known as Lambrigg crossover.
Within three days of the accident in Cumbria, which resulted in the death of an elderly woman, the Rail Accident Investigation Branch had published an interim report which pointed to the condition of the points as the "immediate cause of the derailment". It found that a stretcher bar designed to keep the switch rails at the correct distance apart were missing and that bolts which secured another two bars were not in place.
When properly functioning, the switch rails can divert the train's wheels on to a divergent track but the distance between them has to be exact otherwise one wheel can be diverted while the other remains on the original track.
As the rigidly-mounted wheels cannot follow a narrowing route, the train is quickly derailed.
The RAIB's report suggested that just such a process occurred at Grayrigg. Investigators also found that two stretcher bars were fractured, one probably during the derailment but another possibly having fractured before it.
The similarities with the 2002 Potters Bar accident, which was also blamed on faulty points, were highlighted by rail unions and relatives of the crash victims.
In 2005, Network Rail took maintenance work in-house - partly as a result of Potters Bar and ongoing criticism of maintenance standards - and ended the system which allowed private companies to charge for the rail network's upkeep whilst evading any transparent system of accountability.
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