THE train driver who survived the Selby rail disaster today gave an inquest jury the harrowing details of the crash.

Andrew Hill, 42, was with Brayton driver Stephen Dunn in the cab of a Freightliner coal train when it collided with a GNER train in a crash that claimed the lives of ten men, six of them from North Yorkshire.

Reading Mr Hill's statement to him at the inquest at the Majestic Hotel, Harrogate, coroner David Hinchliffe said that as he lay head down in a pile of soil after the crash, Mr Hill felt for Mr Dunn's hand.

"You squeezed his hand and called his name a couple of times but got no response. You got the impression at this time you were behind the bridge at Great Heck but you could not see anything," said the coroner.

Mr Hill agreed.

Earlier, the jury heard how Mr Dunn joined Mr Hill in the engine of the coal train at Gascoigne Wood signalbox at about midnight. Mr Dunn sat on the right and Mr Hill on the left.

At Immingham, by mutual agreement, Mr Dunn, an experienced driver, took over the driving so he could learn the route between the seaport and the Doncaster area.

As they drove north along the East Coast main line towards York, a green light suddenly changed to red when they were less than 200 yards from it.

Mr Dunn said "what's up?" and the drivers feared that something was seriously wrong.

Mr Hill saw a horizontal flash across the tracks in the distance and saw the GNER train coming towards them.

He cried out: "Steve, get the brakes on."

He thought the two trains would pass each other, but then he saw a coach from the passenger train jack-knife across the coal train's tracks.

"You said to Steve: 'Steve, get out!'," the coroner said.

Mr Hill was standing in the centre of the cab holding the central column and Mr Dunn was sitting on the right holding the central column and the brake.

Then the front of the GNER train filled the front window of the coal train engine, Mr Hill felt movement and shaking and remembered nothing more until he was aware he was in complete darkness and quiet with soil filling his mouth.

He managed to get his mouth free and call for help. He was unaware that he was upside down and thought he was in the corridor immediately behind the coal train's cab.

Shortly afterwards, he was pulled free by rescuers.

Mr Hill was shaking with shock and reaction and taken to hospital with a neck brace, though doctors later decided he had no broken bones.

Yesterday a rail expert told the jury that a train involved in the crash was probably derailed when it hit Gary Hart's Land Rover, which was on the track after leaving the M62 moments earlier.

Richard Billinge, a derailment expert at AEA Technology which used to be British Rail's research department, was giving evidence at the inquest at Harrogate's Majestic Hotel into the crash.

He said that marks on the rails showed that the front wheels came off the rails within five metres of the 06.00 York to London GNER service hitting the Land Rover.

Earlier, vehicle crash police expert PC Steven Shone, of Humberside Police, said that in his opinion the train was derailed by a piece of metal from the Land Rover.

He said the front of the vehicle "disintegrated" in the collision, its engine was thrown on to the railway embankment and part of it hit a bridge nearby. The rest of the Land Rover turned round one-and-a-third times as it was propelled forward and off the track.

He thought that a piece of the vehicle landed in such a way that it came between the train's wheels and the rail, but could not say which piece.

Mr Billinge said the GNER train was braking after the collision and would normally have come to a stop still upright.

However, because the front wheels had come off the track, part of the front of the passenger train was directly in the path of the coal train and the two collided 640 metres south of the original collision.

Ten people died as the GNER train jack-knifed and part of it fell on its side.

The jury heard that the Freightliner train was new and the GNER train had had routine servicing just over an hour before it left Newcastle at 04.45 at the start of its journey to London.

The BBC admitted today it was "unfortunate" that a TV show was to broadcast a dramatisation of a rail tragedy in the same week as the inquest.

Survivors hit out at the scheduling of the BBC1 series Casualty, which returns on Saturday with a two-parter surrounding a train disaster.

The BBC said today: "This story plan was devised a year ago to kick off the 18th series. It is entirely fictional and not based on any one event. It is unfortunate that the episode coincides with the inquest into the Selby incident."

Updated: 14:52 Tuesday, September 09, 2003