LONDON — A train crash that killed seven people this month may have been caused by a saboteur who loosened several nuts in a track-switching mechanism, a rail maintenance contractor said in comments reported Saturday.
The Times of London and the Daily Express quoted Kevin Hyde, the chief operating officer at Jarvis PLC, the rail maintenance contractor in charge of the train line, as saying that someone must have intentionally sabotaged the mechanism to cause the accident, according to a wire service.
“Somebody took these nuts off, and there was nothing in maintenance requirements for that action to be taken. This has been done by an informed person. … There are some very strange people who do strange things on the railways,” the Times quoted Hyde as saying.
But police and a rail expert disputed that claim.
Evidence suggests an earlier attempt to sabotage points on the line was made nine days before the accident, the Times quoted the company as saying.
Jarvis has said its inspectors repaired loose nuts at the switching mechanism just days before the May 10 crash. The nuts then were inspected the day before the accident.
Hyde said expert evidence suggested the nuts were moved in the 24 hours before the crash at the suburban Potters Bar station north of London.
“If this was done 24 hours before the accident it could not be part of the maintenance regime and should be investigated for its cause,” Hyde told British Broadcasting Corp. radio.
“What we are saying is that this new evidence is such that the sabotage option should not be ruled out of the investigation.”
The Times quoted Jarvis as saying that three alterations to a set of points outside Potters Bar, which caused the train to leave the track at about 100 mph, had all the markings of a calculated act by a person with a detailed knowledge of railways.
But British Transport Police said they had found “no concrete evidence” suggesting sabotage.
Rail analyst Christian Wolmar said the sabotage claim was “a desperate attempt by Jarvis to put up a smoke screen when most of the evidence points the other way.”
In an interim report, British safety officials said the accident was caused by four loose nuts in a track switching mechanism.
The Health and Safety Executive said the high-speed express commuter train carrying 151 people derailed as it passed through a faulty set of points — the mechanism diverting a train from one track to another.
A rail union official said a worker drew attention to the faulty points and the poor state of the track three weeks before the crash. But John Armitt, chief executive of Railtrack, which manages the railway infrastructure, said the company had not received any official information about track problems.
Frank Hyland, who is managing the executive’s investigation, said the inquiry was focusing on why the nuts were not in place. No debris was found on the track and any vandalism would have been “extremely sophisticated and daring,” Hyland has said. There was no evidence of any error by the train’s driver, the interim report said.
The wreck was the sixth fatal train crash in Britain since 1997, and further sapped public confidence in Britain’s dilapidated railway network.