FOR the family of John Power, the grieving is just beginning. Tributes have been pouring in for the "quiet family man" who died when his car was hit by the 14.25 Plymouth to Edinburgh express at Copmanthorpe.

Our deepest sympathies go out to Mr Power's family.

At the same time, however, there is a sense of great relief - relief that this tragedy was not so much worse. We have all seen, countless times, images of twisted, tangled rail carriages strewn beside the railway lines.

In 2001, those images came uncomfortably close to home when at Great Heck, near Selby, an express train collided head-on with a goods train coming the other way after it had been derailed by Gary Hart's Land Rover on the track.

Ten people died and scores were seriously hurt. The disaster left a permanent emotional scar in the hearts and minds of the entire community.

Yet when the Virgin Cross Country train hit Mr Power's car at about 100mph on Monday evening, it didn't come off the tracks. It didn't roll over, smashing into homes beside the railway line.

Emergency services did not face the grim task of recovering tens of dead bodies from the wreckage.

Miraculously, neither the train driver nor any of his 74 passengers were killed or seriously injured. Some passengers did not even realise there had been a crash.

For this, we must pay thanks to the skill and commitment of designers and construction workers at train builders Bombardier. The train they built may well have helped save scores of lives.

Its low centre of gravity, the sweep' at the front designed to push objects out of the way and inbuilt crumple zones' all helped prevent a tragic accident turning into what could have been a fully-fledged rail disaster. Thanks be for that.