RAIL passengers and staff are suffering a surge in accidents resulting in injury and death as privateer bosses slash staffing levels in their pursuit of profits.

The latest report on rail health and safety published yesterday by the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) showed incidents involving track maintenance workers at their highest level for seven years, with three deaths, 79 major injuries and 1,641 reported minor injuries.

Deaths and injuries involving passengers have also increased. Four passengers were killed after falling from platforms and there were 1,250 other platform-related injuries in 2013-4.

The report says the rail industry faces pressure from rising passenger numbers.

And the ORR reported that the number of signals "passed at danger" — when trains go through a red light — rose 17 per cent.

ORR railway safety director Ian Prosser said station platform safety was a “major challenge” in the face of rising passenger numbers.

Despite increasing accident levels, private rail operators are axing staff mercilessly, closing ticket offices and getting rid of on-board staff.

Operators are also being handed hundreds of millions of pounds in taxpayer subsidies.

The jobs butchery is in line with recommendations to the government in the McNulty report, which called for drastic reductions in staffing levels.

Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union acting general secretary Mick Cash said the statistics lay bare the full impact of cuts and fragmentation on our railways while passenger numbers continue to surge.

He described them as “shocking and shameful” and said those responsible should be “hanging their heads in shame as they have blood on their hands.”

Mr Cash said: “RMT safety reps continue to report flagrant breaches of procedures and regulations as staff numbers are hacked to the bone, work is contracted out and casualised with corners cut in a desperate drive to try to keep services running against a backdrop of savage financial cuts.

“RMT is in no doubt that the catalogue of death and injuries on our railways, among both staff and passengers, will continue to increase unless this government reverse the cuts programme laid out in their McNulty rail review.”