The Archbishop of York told today how he would have been travelling on the GNER train which crashed - until he decided not to attend a church meeting in London.

And he revealed that a York church warden is amongst the passengers still unaccounted for.

He also confirmed that a memorial service is to be staged in future at York Minster, with a smaller service of remembrance at 3pm this Sunday at St Paul's Church, Hensall.

Dr David Hope was speaking after a visit to the scene of the tragedy at Great Hook, near Selby.

He said: "It was a very poignant moment. At that time of day, all the tangled wreckage, with the sun rising, reminded me of the tangled body of Christ on the cross and the signs of Resurrection."

He said he felt "totally numbed" by the tragedy, and by what those who had been on the train must have gone through. He said he often caught that train out of York to go to London.

"You get your coffee and bacon sandwich and it doesn't occur to you that this could happen."

He was speaking after the identities of three railwaymen killed in the crash were revealed.

The driver of the freight train which collided with the derailed GNER train was named as father-of-two Stephen Dunn, 39, of Brayton, Selby.

Mr Dunn, of Old Farm Way, leaves a widow, Mary, and two sons, Andrew, a pupil at Brayton High, and James, who attends the village junior school.

Mrs Dunn, a nurse, was today being comforted by her parents who said she was too distressed to talk about the tragedy.

A GNER chef who died was Paul Taylor, of Newcastle, and the GNER driver who died was John Weddle, a divorced father-of-two from Throckley, near Newcastle.

A third member of its crew, customer operations leader Raymond Robson, 43, from Whitley Bay, was "unaccounted for".

Emergency crews have completed the grim task of recovering bodies from the mangled wreckage of two trains which crashed near Selby.

But the death toll could be set to rise as the recovery operation continues.

Police originally said 13 people were killed in the crash, but they have now amended that to say that teams have recovered human remains from 13 sites at the scene at Great Heck.

"The final body count is now a matter for the pathologist," said Supt Tony Thompson, of British Transport Police, who is leading the operation.

A search to recover the belongings of passengers in the Selby rail crash was resuming today.

Police said the removal of the mangled carriages could not begin until the possessions of all those caught up in the tragedy had been collected from the wreckage.

Meanwhile, the wife of Gary Hart, the driver of the Land Rover which crashed onto the line, causing the tragedy, has dismissed suggestions that he had fallen asleep at the wheel as "rubbish".

Elaine Hart, 38, said her husband had rejected the idea and had stressed that the crash was a tragic accident.

Police said that the possibility that Mr Hart, from the village of Strubby, in Lincolnshire, fell asleep at the wheel was among aspects of the accident being looked at.

Chief Inspector of Railways Vic Coleman said the issue of whether barriers on bridges ought to be extended would have to be examined, but he questioned whether it was practical to suggest lining tracks with barriers along lengthy sections.

Updated: 11:39 Friday, March 02, 2001