Why Have 3 pieces of metal brackets called "stretcher bars" been in the News headlines recently in the UK and also were involved in an earlier story a few years back.
Points awarded if you can tell us the 2 locations where this occurred?
2nd is ongoing (See BBC site for details)

It has to do with rail crash. The bolts that hold the bars were missing. More here. Near Greyrigg is the latest location I beleive

Here is an Interim report on the accident
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/26_02_07_grayrigg.pdf
Adobe Acrobat Document
Attention to section #26 (and diagram there)

And this will cost somebody a Pretty penny
The contractors who are supposed to maintain these at least....And Sir Richard Branson Is Fuming ( I Don't blame him?) His Company Virgin Trains runs the passenger trains on this Line www.virgintrains.co.uk/default.aspx (<--Message )


PS No one got a clue about the earlier accidents Location?

The other one was in 2002 at the delightfully named (but very boring London suburb ) Potter's Bar. Seven people were killed,six on the train and one by flying debris, when an express derailed at points (switch in US ). Those points too had recently been the subject of routine maintenance. As here the points had been left without their fixings being secured.

Bedstor may have some figures ? It seems to me that rail crashes are far rarer in Britain than they were fifty years ago. They seemed more numerous in the 1950s and early '60s.In the instant case there would have been a great loss of life but for the train being a tilting pendolino one where the carriages are of a strong monocoque design.

Indeed Fred the Carriage design came up trumps
Up to the Old Mk1 and Mk2 designs they had no crumple somes and were prone to "telescoping"(coupling design) and in the Older models there was always High asbestos content as well in the design!
Rail failure with points always was with Facing Points Direction of travel and the "frog brekin wth stresss (thats the tip ot the "V")

Newest fault is gauge corner cracking where welded joints fail www.rail-reg.gov.uk/server/show/conGlossary ( Metal fatigue) older version would be classed a "broken rail"