The more we learn about Friday's rail crash at Grayrigg in Cumbria, the more startling the parallels with the crash at Potters Bar in Hertfordshire in May 2002.

The similarities have been particularly shocking for the survivors and the families of those who died in the Hertfordshire crash. The novelist Nina Bawden and her husband, Austen Kark, a former head of the BBC World Service, were among them. She was seriously injured and he was killed.

For her, this latest accident is an unnecessary tragedy. "If we had had a public inquiry after Potters Bar, we would not have had the Cumbria accident. That's why I think there should be a public inquiry into both. Five years later, we are now having an inquest with a High Court judge and a jury. It's a step forward, but it's a bit late for most of us survivors," says Bawden, now 82.

John Armitt, chief executive of Network Rail, has taken responsibility for the crash and given an unreserved apology: it is one of the significant differences between Potters Bar and Grayrigg. Bawden, although dismissive of "dear Mr Armitt putting on his soulful tone", says: "We Potters Bar survivors have never had an apology from Railtrack or Jarvis, or indeed a proper admission of liability. It's disgraceful."

She believes the only lesson that has been learned is how to deal with the publicity. "They now know it is better to come out and look noble and take responsibility than shelter behind the lawyers and say they weren't liable," she says.

Track maintenance is now the responsibility of Network Rail, which, unlike its predecessor body, Railtrack, does not contract it out to private companies. Even so, Bawden claims they do employ casual labour.

"I don't think they have a safety structure as it should be, unlike old British Rail. They don't walk the tracks every day. I think British Rail had a better ethos; when I was young, one of my friends' fathers was a lengthsman who walked the length of his track every day. He said to me once, It's not a very grand job, Nina, but I like to think all those people's lives are in my hands.' They had a pride in their job and they knew what they were doing, and it was important to them, which I don't think is true the way things are run nowadays."

She is critical of successive governments that she believes have starved the railways of funds, and says "of course" they should be re-nationalised.

She was unconscious for several months after the accident and says it was her children who suffered: "This has brought those memories back to them and they are angry that it should happen again."