Railtrack has suspended a signalman for sending a Eurostar train towards the wrong London station in a high speed incident which alarmed passengers and raised fresh concern about railway safety.
The 22.30 Paris-to-London service on Monday was directed towards Victoria instead of its usual destination, Waterloo International. The mistake, at a set of lights outside Clapham Junction, was spotted by the train's driver, who slammed on the brakes. The train went only a few yards in the wrong direction, but rail commentators said Eurostar has safety clearance to use only a handful of routes.
An engineering source said: "Eurostar is only cleared for a very small number of lines because of its clearance from platforms and other trains."
Railtrack insisted Eurostar was safe for the line to Victoria, which is intended to be used as a diversion if an emergency causes the closure of Waterloo. But safety experts said if the errant signalman had sent Eurostar down a smaller commuter line, it could have led to disaster, with the train hitting either a platform or scraping a train on a parallel track.
The driver on Monday's train realised he had been misdirected because the green signal was not accompanied by the usual "feather" - a line of dotted lights advising him that the train would be turning.
After contacting signallers, he walked through the train to the rear cab and reversed. As he switched power, the train was plunged into darkness, triggering consternation among the 446 passengers. The train arrived at Waterloo 27 minutes late.
In a statement yesterday, Railtrack insisted the mistake caused no safety risk. It said: "As is normal practice, the signaller was relieved from duty at the time and will be dealt with through normal internal procedures."
The signaller responsible for the mistake was based at Railtrack's Victoria control room. Software systems prevent staff from putting two trains on the same stretch of track but do not stop straightforward misdirections.
A Eurostar source played down the incident, saying: "The passengers would have noticed a rather sharp stop, tut-tutted a bit and looked at their watches."
The company denied reports that it triggered a full scale emergency, although misdirections are understood to have happened only a couple of times in Eurostar's history.
The Rail Passengers' Council described the incident as regrettable but added: "It would appear that all appropriate procedures were followed to rectify the problem quickly and without putting passengers at risk."
· GNER has leased three high speed Eurostar trains to help beef up its service on the east coast mainline between London and Leeds. A new timetable beginning next week will feature six extra northbound trains each day and five heading south, taking the total number of services to London and Leeds to 53 daily - a 44% increase on 1996.