At Easter, two North-East teenagers were killed when they were hit by a train. Andy Scott, the driver of that train, tells Olivia Richwald about what happened that night - and how he wants to help stop children trespassing on railway lines.

ON his first day back at work, Andy Scott drove over the Five Arches Bridge in Darlington for the first time in three weeks. The last time, he was alone in the cab. This time, he had his manager alongside him.

As he approached the bridge, Andy's heart started beating faster, he started sweating, feeling nervous and his stomach churned. And as he slowed the train he saw the area was strewn with flowers, cards and pictures which had blown down from the metal fences, the fences Stuart Adams and Lee Mullis had climbed three weeks earlier.

"There were hundreds of flowers. It was the day of the boys' funeral," Andy remembers. "It brought it home, it was heartbreaking. "I thought, 'I was their age once, we all do silly things'.

"I thought about the parents. I have a little girl that I adore and it would break my spirit to think of anything happening to her. I can't imagine what it must be like as a parent to have to deal with something like this."

Stuart Adams, 15, and Lee Mullis, 14, were killed instantly when they were hit by Andy's train. It was Good Friday and they were among a group of teenagers who had gathered at Five Arches Bridge in Darlington to celebrate the start of their Easter holidays.

Andy, 36, a driver with Northern Rail, was contracted out to drive for Transpennine Express that night. He had worked in the rail industry for ten years, and been a driver for the last five.

It was about 8.40pm. Pitch black. Andy had already driven to York, Middlesbrough and again to York. This was his last run, from Manchester Airport to Newcastle.

'I had just left Darlington station and started accelerating to get up to the unit limit of 90mph. I think I was doing 50 to 60mph," he recalls. "It was very dark because the bridge is high up and there are no street lights.

"Out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of a person wearing a hood. I lost sight of him, sounded my emergency horn and hit my emergency brake. I knew straight away I had hit him from the noise."

What happened next took just seconds, but it is a sequence Andy has re-played in his mind a hundred times.

"It is amazing how long it takes a train to slow down. It is not like a car braking: you can't push your brake harder, you just put the lever in position," he explains.

Andy pushed the emergency button for a direct line to Network Rail's control centre in York to stop the opposite, southbound, line. He asked for the emergency services. He saw his conductor and contacted Darlington station to halt all trains.

"I was full of adrenaline and working on autopilot from my training. We all hope and pray that things like this aren't going to happen. I felt I was going to be sick, my mind couldn't believe it, I thought it was a mistake. I still don't believe it," he says.

"But I couldn't fall to pieces, I had to act as a professional to make sure the situation didn't get any worse."

It took 200 metres for the train to stop. About 40 passengers were onboard. They were moved into the front two coaches. Andy, the conductor and an off duty guard on the train, walked to the back of the third and last coach. The conductor and the guard went back up the line to the accident spot, leaving Andy alone.

"I was in shock and shaking. As you can imagine, my mind was racing and I was a bundle of nerves. I opened the door to get some fresh air. I was sweating, my collar was tight but I was trying to compose myself, " he recalls.

"Beyond the guard I saw a torch - that was a policeman who was first on the scene."

Andy already knew it was bad, but the news brought back by the conductor and the off duty guard would devastate him.

"They said, 'You're not going to believe this. There are two of them, and they are both dead'. "I thought I was already feeling bad, but that just scrambled my brain," Andy says.

He had no idea a second person was involved and even now, four months later, he can only imagine how and where he was on the line.

"They were in shock, I was in shock, I stood up, sat down, stood up," he says.

As he waited for a relief driver and conductor to arrive, Andy watched the distant flashes as police officers photographed the site. He was called by the British Transport Police from London, who asked him if he suspected foul play. He didn't.

"It was a 90 tonne train, they never stood a chance," he says, "I know from my experience that when a train is bearing down on you it is frightening, the speed they move. I have hit a dog once and birds many times, but it was nothing like this."

The train arrived back in Newcastle at about midnight and Andy drove back to his home in Morpeth, Northumberland, with one of his managers.

His wife Jill had stayed awake.

"My brother had seen a newsflash and said he had felt a gut-wrenching feeling I was involved. Then they had phoned my mum who was in floods of tears, devastated for the lads.

"My wife went upstairs and I know it's stupid but I just sat watching the newsflashes on the TV. I couldn't take it in, I kept thinking 'That was me driving'," Andy says.

He had less than three weeks off work before he forced himself to drive again.

"I thought if I stop, I may never go back. With some lads it's months, others never go back. One man was back the day after a fatality. I didn't know how I was going to react the first time I drove a train, or when I went back over the bridge.

"But I didn't want to become another victim of this situation. There have already been enough victims. I would have lost my job, my livelihood, a lot of my friends. I made sure I could drive again," he says.

Andy doesn't blame anyone, but he knows the accident was avoidable. He says: "I have had times when I sat down and felt low about how tragic this is, other times I have felt annoyed that they were so stupid. It is so sickening that the boys threw their lives away.

"But I haven't felt guilty because I know there was nothing I could have done, the only people who could have changed it were Stuart and Lee themselves."

He is determined to turn his horrific experience into something positive and now he wants to go into schools to share his story in the hope it will prevent children from fooling around on railway lines.

He says the accident has not changed him, but it has made him nervous when driving a train. "Sometimes when I am driving along the image pops into my head. The slightest movement on the line and that gut wrenching feeling comes back and my stomach is in my mouth.

"For some reason railways draw children like a magnet and this will happen again, but if I can help by going into schools, if children meet real drivers, if I can save just one person from going on the line for one minute, if it avoids an accident, then it is worth it."