AS the investigation begins into yesterday's Potters Bar tragedy, key recommendations from the 1999 Paddington crash have still not been implemented.

Paddington inquiry chairman Lord Cullen stipulated that recommendations on the supervision of, and use of, railway contractors should be implemented by March 2002.

However, last month the Health and Safety Commission (HSC) said that this timetable had not been met.

Lord Cullen had made his recommendations after taking into account the October 2000 Hatfield crash when a broken rail on a section of track being worked on by contractors led to a derailment in which four people died. HSC chairman Bill Callaghan said last month that he was "disappointed" that the recommendations relating to contractors had not been completed.

He said: "This is a crucial area where changes are needed, and, although work has started, there is a lot more to do.

"Lord Cullen recommended arrangements to improve safety leadership.

"The industry has taken action but this can only be the first step on a path of continuous improvement in rail safety culture.''

The HSC said the great majority of recommendations made after the September 1997 Southall crash, which claimed seven lives, had now been completed.

Both the Southall inquiry chairman, Professor John Uff, and Lord Cullen have also made recommendations about train protection systems which stop trains going through danger signals.

The two chairmen recommended that an expensive and sophisticated European train protection system (ERTMS) should be introduced on all 100mph lines in the UK by 2010.

But last month the rail industry said the recommended system was simply not good enough, and that another version of ERTMS should be introduced with far later implementation times.