THE brother of a North-East man killed in the Southall rail crash has attacked Railtrack ahead of two new reports which are expected to heap further criticism on the company.

Railtrack is said to be behind schedule with the implementation of the Train Protection Warning System (TPWS) designed to be in place by the end of 2003.

The system, being fitted to trains and signals, is aimed at stopping drivers from passing red danger signals as at Southall and latterly the Paddington disaster.

A report is due to be published today, by Lord Cullen and Professor John Uff, into train protection.

It will say that TPWS, which is costing £500m, is being fitted too slowly. And in a separate report, MPs will call for Railtrack to be re-nationalised.

In a scathing report, the Commons Transport Select Committee will say that the chaos on the railways following the Hatfield crash last October showed that Railtrack's maintenance of the network was "simply not acceptable".

Last October, Railtrack announced it was due to install the TPWS system at a notorious railway signal on the East Coast Main Line, near York, which had seen trains pass through at red eight times in eight years.

But is thought that only 1,200 signals out of 11,000 nationally have been fitted with the system.

Last night, John Traynor, whose brother Ged, a former Easington council officer, was one of the seven Southall victims, said Railtrack was not moving quickly enough to implement safety improvements.

Mr Traynor, who is a solicitor in South Shields, said: "They have had the crash at Hatfield to deal with more recently and appear to have taken their finger off what is supposed in be in place.

"I would not be surprised if there is considerable criticism of Railtrack and the train operating companies."

He added that the families of crash victims still wanted to see the eventual introduction of the more sophisticated European-standard Euro Rail Traffic Management system.

It is more effective in the cases of high speed trains passing danger signals, but still could take ten to 15 years to implement.

Railtrack said it had encountered "technical difficulties" in installing TPWS.

But a spokesman said: "We hope to be in the position to achieve our own deadline of January 1, 2003. It will be very tight."

A spokesman for the Association of Train Operating Companies said it was aiming to fit the system to all passenger trains by the end of 2003.

It is thought that out of 600 trains, only about a 100 have been fitted.