THERE can't be many rail-users who've climbed on their train since the Hatfield or Selby disasters and haven't given at least a passing thought to how safe their journey's going to be, or whether they'll step off safely at the other end.

There may only have been six passengers on the 5.38 from Great Malvern to Worcester, on Saturday morning, but that was six too many people - six too many families - for comfort when it hit a sign left on the track.

"Scare" is the strongest word, thank goodness, we can use today, but how close did the 5.38 come to disaster? We'll never know whether it was an inch or less. Whichever, while we're tempted to say it doesn't bear thinking about, it does.

There's little or nothing, beyond sending a man ahead on foot to check, which Thames Trains could have done to prevent the incident.

The solution is to make sure that such acts of vandalism never occur again, even if that's easier said than done.

Catching the culprits will depend on someone finding it difficult to keep his or her bragging mouth shut and someone else passing a community-spirited word on to the authorities.

We wouldn't want police or the courts to stop there, though.

The ultimate deterrent would be a sentence reflecting the potential consequences of the crime, not a near-miss. What's more, if children turn out to be responsible, the warning must be even louder and longer.

Since 1995, courts have had the power to bind over parents to ensure that their children comply with community sentences, or face fines of up to £1,000.

We don't believe that's enough. We argued before the last General Election that the Government must give police the power to charge parents over the criminal actions of their children. We do it again.

If Saturday's scare isn't evidence that there's need for such a sanction, we don't know what is.