At Heathrow bags are X-rayed to make sure they do not contain explosives. These security procedures inevitably add time to the process.Airlines are not happy with the situation. It can cost a great deal to reunite passengers with their luggage. Besides the time spent in tracing bags, couriers have to be hired to deliver the luggage, when it appears, to the passenger's home or hotel.However it seems that the cost of allowing passengers and luggage a more realistic transfer time, is even greater."It's difficult not to be somewhat cynical," said Mr Evans, " After all, if the airline loses 20 bags it might be liable for £6,000. If it lengthens journey times it could lose a lot more."LUGGAGE HORROR STORIESFROM THE bridesmaid's dress diverted 200 miles from its wedding to the Christmas presents languishing in Manchester rather than being opened in the Alps, lost luggage is no laughing matter.Whether it is because of a mix-up between connecting airlines or light-fingered terminal workers, the net result is heartache and hours of airport rage before the wayward bags are all too often declared irretrievable.Such was the experience of Tony Benn, the veteran former Labour MP, and his daughter Melissa, when they were grounded in Cincinatti because of overbooking on their Delta Airways flight to Britain.While the pair, returning from a remembrance ceremony for Mr Benn's late wife, were diverted on to another flight via Paris, their bags were making their way to Orlando, Florida Airline staff said the luggage would arrive the next day. Only Mr Benn's suitcase turned up while the rest, including irreplaceable photographs, was declared "not yet traceable".A similarly flip explanation was offered to David Capper, from Belfast, whose three airlines on a trip to Florida, via Heathrow, achieved the unusual distinction of losing his bags twice.The baggage, which was transported by British Midland, British Airways and US Air, arrived 24 hours after he touched down in Tampa, Florida, via Miami.Upon his return to Northern Ireland, his luggage went astray again before being delivered to his home six hours later.

A British Midland staff member said: "These things happen."There was to be no such salvation for Mark Prouse, from Dublin, after he flew with his wife and six-year-old daughter to Glasgow's Prestwick airport by Ryanair to attend his sister's wedding.After three hours of waiting for their luggage to turn up, the family had to rush to hire a replacement for Mr Prouse's suit and buy a new bridesmaid's dress for his daughter. The family was awarded £1,000 damages, in addition to the maximum £270 available for the loss of their luggage.A final thought for the Beard family from Ilkley, West Yorkshire, who arrived at Lyons airport in the south of France to find their Christmas presents had not made the journey from Manchester.Caroline Beard, who was en route to Meribel for a festive skiing holiday, spent a week on the phone to BA trying to locate the bag with the presents It was never found. She said: "It does seem odd that from a total of 11 pieces of luggage, the only one to go missing was the one that just happened to be filled with Christmas presents.". Railtrack is expected to take the lion's share of the blame for the 1999 Paddington disaster in the Cullen report due to be published next week.

Railtrack is expected to take the lion's share of the blame for the 1999 Paddington disaster in the Cullen report due to be published next week. Thames Trains, which was recently granted another rail franchise in southern England, will also come under fire for its grossly inadequate system of instructing drivers.The findings will raise the prospect of manslaughter proceedings against senior executives at the companies, especially those at Railtrack who failed to take action over the signalling system outside the west London station despite repeated warnings.The Director of Public Prosecutions is still considering evidence submitted by British Transport Police, and Railtrack could separately face unlimited fines for breaches of health and safety law.The Cullen report will confirm that the immediate cause of the tragedy, in which 31 people were killed, was the fact that Michael Hodder, the driver of a Thames commuter train on its way out of Paddington, passed a red light. His train then smashed virtually head-on into an incoming Great Western express which exploded in a ball of fire.The signal passed by Mr Hodder, SN109, was partly obscured by overhead equipment and difficult to see in direct sunlight. It had been passed at danger at least eight times in the six years before the crash. A series of committees set up to investigate the signalling system outside Paddington, which is one of the most complicated in the world, failed to take action to make it safer.The inquiry heard evidence that Alison Forster, then operations and safety director at First Great Western, had written three times to Railtrack before the crash to demand action over signal 109, asking "as a matter of urgency what action you intend to take".The signal was known as one of the most dangerous on the network and one of a series outside Paddington which failed to comply with regulations. Successive Conservative and Labour governments will also be criticised in the report for dragging their heels over safety systems.

In a separate report out last month Lord Cullen, together with Professor John Uff, urged the industry to install the most sophisticated Automatic Train Protection equipment as a matter of priority. The 31 deaths at Paddington would have been prevented if the system had been in use at the time.The savage criticism of Railtrack contained in the document prepared by Lord Cullen will further undermine the image of a company already at rock-bottom. Shares in Railtrack yesterday slumped another 9 per cent to a new low of 298p.Gerald Corbett, who was chief executive of Railtrack at the time of the disaster, has since resigned, but Lord Cullen's report will still have a massive impact.The report will be published in the wake of figures which call into question the effectiveness of safety measures introduced since the 1999 Paddington crash. The statistics show that the number of serious incidents involving trains passing red lights has risen sharply. The total of 22 "severe" incidents was the highest May figure for six years, according to the Health and Safety Executive.The overall tally of 56 was also the highest since the Paddington crash.

Fifteen of last month's incidents involved trains running 200 yards past a red signal Mr Hodder drove his train more than 700 yards past SN109.. The Government's policy on the single currency was plunged into confusion yesterday after Tony Blair and his ministers told supporters of British entry to "cool it". The Government's policy on the single currency was plunged into confusion yesterday after Tony Blair and his ministers told supporters of British entry to "cool it".Although Downing Street has privately encouraged pro-euro campaign groups to "up the ante" after Mr Blair's landslide general election victory, the Treasury is alarmed and has launched a counterstrike by playing down the prospects of early euro entry. "There is arm-wrestling between No 10 and the Treasury," one minister admitted last night. "The Government is sending conflicting and confusing signals.