WHEN Andy Hill woke up with a mouthful of soil, upside down and buried alive in a North Yorkshire garden, he knew nothing about the terrible events that had left his train driver colleague dead and many more lives in tatters.

Before passing out, the Freightliner supervisor driver had seen the dazzling headlights of a derailed GNER train zooming towards him.

Sparks were flying as the enormous machine bore down on him and fellow driver Steve Dunn in the cab of their freight train.

"Steve, get out," were the last words that passed his lips before the 5.59am from York to London hit a set of points, bounced up across his windscreen and ploughed into his cab.

"I was woken up by the soil and mud filling my mouth and nose," said the 39-year-old British Rail veteran and father-of-three.

"I thought I was going to die there, wherever there was.

I was very, very cold and my whole body was trapped - all I could move was my right arm.

I didn't know what had happened but I was in severe pain, particularly my head and neck."

When Andy, from Doncaster, was discovered by villagers and firemen he was pulled out, shivering and resigned to the death of his colleague.

His first comment, when told by rescuers that they'd have him patched up and in the pub by the evening, was: "I'm a train driver, I can't afford a drink."

Humour has played a big part in Andy's recovery from such a traumatic experience.

The only positive thing he can draw from the crash, which kept him off work for eight months, is the close bonds he has developed with other survivors.

He admits they have created a kind of black humour among themselves - but it is his way of coping with an incident that has left him unable to travel on trains.

"I went once," he said, the strain clear in his voice.

"Up to Newcastle. It was like a white-knuckle ride."

His family has been hit hard too. A proposed trip to Florida was scrapped when his son, seven-year-old Alex, said he didn't want to fly.

"I don't want to go on a plane and crash," he told his father.

Christopher, 14, and Mark, eight, have not taken it much better, and wife Angela still tearfully remembers the morning Pontefract Hospital rang to say her husband had been in a crash.

"His face and body were covered in lacerations and bruises," she said.

"It was a terrible time for us all."

Andy added: "Things will never be the same again."

25/02/02