THE motorist in the Selby train disaster told police how he got out of his Land Rover seconds before a York to London train smashed through the off-side of the vehicle.

Gary Neil Hart, 37, also described how he stood alone in the snow next to the M62 motorway immediately after the collision while vehicles drove past without stopping.

In an interview after the crash, Hart told British Transport Police that if he had travelled another ten metres before his vehicle suddenly veered to the left, he would never have been on the railway because a barrier would have stopped him going off the motorway.

He asked the detectives: "I obviously know there were fatalities. I would like to know the extent of the damage."

The police replied that they could not tell him yet.

"That's when it is going to hit home," Hart responded.

Ten passengers and train crew died when the derailed express hit a coal train travelling in the opposite direction.

Today, Hart was returning to the scene together with the jurors who will decide whether he caused the deaths by dangerous driving.

The Selby train crash trial left its courtroom to visit the M62 bridge where the Land Rover left the motorway and plunged on to the East Coast Main Line.

Hart, of Strubby, Lincolnshire, denies the charges.

In an police interview played to the jury, he described how he heard a bang from the back of the Land Rover. In a split second, the vehicle moved to the side of the road before hitting the kerb and going off the carriageway, smashing through a fence and down an embankment.

"I can remember thinking: 'this is going to hurt - I'm going down in the ditch'.

"There was fencing flying, then there was silence, absolute silence for half a second."

Hart said he searched for his mobile phone to dial 999, then scrambled out of the passenger door because the driver's door was blocked.

"If I had still been looking for it, I would not be here talking to you now," he told the police at about 4pm on February 28.

He added that the train crashed through the driver's door of the Land Rover. Out of the 40 seconds between leaving the motorway and the collision, he spent 20 seconds searching for the phone.

After the collision, he scrambled back up the motorway embankment and phoned his wife, Elaine, who went into hysterics.

"Nobody stopped. I don't know if anyone saw me go off the motorway," Hart said.

"I stood in the snow. I was on my own. I waited by the barrier for the police to arrive."

He also said he had had about two or three hours sleep that night.

"I have got a very funny lifestyle," Hart said. "My life is a thousand miles an hour. It is just a way of life."

He said that some nights he would sleep for two or three hours and others he would sleep for between eight or ten. Sometimes, if his work demanded it he would work 36 hours straight through without any problem.

Before leaving his home for Wigan at about 4.35am on February 28, he had a mug of sweet tea and as he drove westward, he had drunk coffee from a flask.

The trial continues.

Updated: 12:50 Tuesday, December 04, 2001