The Driver

A train hurtles through the countryside at 60 mph as a traveler relaxes with his newspaper. But this is no businessman taking it easy—the driver of the passenger express is doing the reading.

A Sunday Express reader caught the Virgin employee on film as the train sped through Derbyshire on its way to Plymouth from Newcastle.

Virgin, who have come under repeated criticism over their rail service, yesterday suspended the driver after being shown the photograph. A spokesman said an inquiry was under way to establish exactly what he was doing and why he appeared to have taken his eyes off the track ahead.

The picture comes in the week that the public inquiry into the Southhall rail disaster, which claimed seven lives, heard that the driver at the center of that case had earlier been spotted with his feet on the control panel of his cab.

Larry Harrison, who worked for Great Western Trains, drove through two warning signals before crashing at 60 mph into a freight train.

The reader who took this picture was standing on a bridge outside Chesterfield early one summer's evening. He said: "I only realized what I'd got when I had the pictures developed. I couldn't believe it."

"As far as I could see, there was no one else in the cab with the driver, unless they were hiding. The person with the paper open was certainly sitting in the driver's normal seat."

The photographer works on the railways and does not want to be named, but he added: "I've seen many drivers with their feet on the control panel but I've never seen them reading papers like this. There is an automatic warning system and driver's safety device which alters him when he passes yellow and red signals. But you should never take your eyes off the track and rely solely on sounds because you could have an obstruction on the line or suddenly have speed restrictions given."