Selby rail disaster – timeline of how tragedy happened

AT about 6am on Wednesday, February 28, 2001, dozens of bleary-eyed passengers boarded a GNER InterCity 225 at York Railway Station, expecting a routine journey down to London. At the same time, another train, this one carrying coal, was travelling along the railway network from Immingham Docks to Eggborough Power Station. Meanwhile, Gary Hart was driving along the M62 in a Land Rover, towing a trailer carrying a Renault Savanna, as he travelled from his home in Lincolnshire to Wigan.

Thirteen minutes later, the Land Rover and two trains were involved in a freakish chain of events which led to the tragic deaths of 10 passengers and railway employees and left more than 80 people injured. Police examine a Land Rover at the scene of the train crash at Great Heck in 2001 (Image: John Giles/PA Wire) The devastating sequence of events began when Hart, who had spent several hours of the night before his journey chatting to a woman he had met on a dating agency website, fell asleep at the wheel as he was driving along the M62 westbound carriageway just before it crossed over the East Coast Mainline.

The vehicle plunged down an embankment and, by terrible chance, ended up on the southbound railway track. Recommended reading: Hart tried in vain to reverse it off the track, and then got out to call 999 on his mobile and warn the authorities.

But even as he was speaking, a GNER train was hurtling down the line at 125mph, with no chance of braking to a halt, and it smashed into the Land Rover. The front of the train was derailed and, further down the track, it smashed straight into the path of the freight train coming in the opposite direction. The trains crashed head on, at an estimated combined speed of 142mph.

Rescue workers carry a casualty to an ambulance after the train crash at Great Heck in 2001 (Image: David Harrison) The GNER coaches were thrown off the tracks and down an embankment into a field in the village of Great Heck, near Selby. The roof of the buffet car was torn off, and one passenger recalled lying amid the wreckage with snowflakes landing on him.

The Freightliner locomotive and two of its wagons ended up in a garden, destroying a garage and a caravan and leaving a thick black blanket of coal. The crash sparked a huge rescue operation by the emergency services, with three helicopters and a fleet of ambulances ferrying the injured to seven hospitals across Yorkshire. The dead included both train drivers, a buffet chef and a conductor.

Gary Hart arrives at Leeds Crown Court Wednesday November 28, 2001 (Image: Phil Noble/PA Wire) Hart was later jailed for five years by a judge at Leeds Crown Court for causing the deaths of 10 people by dangerous driving. A series of safety investigations were launched after the crash, looking in particular at the risks of road vehicles getting onto railways while crossing bridges and whether barriers were sufficient to prevent this happening.

Experts also looked at the resilience of carriages and changes were made to future train designs to give passengers a better chance of survival in the event of a derailment and crash.