Fault Lines

It seems the recent rail crash of a Virgin Pendolino train was caused by faulty points. A spreader bar and some bolts were loose, causing the train to derail because the rail lines were not evenly spaced. It is difficult to inspect all the thousands of miles of track for faults like this, so Network Rail has built a £5 million train designed to shoot around the network at high speed making video recordings of the state of the rails and equipment. The inspection train had made a run over these faulty points just two days before the crash and video of the fault was recorded. So why wasn't it picked up and acted upon? Even if a repair could not be effected immediately a temporary speed limit of 20 mph over the affected points would have made it safe to travel. Network Rail tells us that the only way to view this inspection video is to slow it down to "super slow motion" so that faults could be picked up. Thus to view even one day's inspection video would take at least a month. So why did Network Rail bother to build, let alone run, this super train? We are told it is so that investigation of incidents and accidents can be clarified. A little like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted - but having CCTV footage of the horse getting scared and ready to bolt. It would be laughable were it not for the fact that a woman died, others were seriously injured and no one can say when the line will be cleared and repaired and opened again for services.
Nuff said . . .