AN eerie silence fell over the region yesterday as thoughts turned hauntingly to the victims of the Selby rail disaster.

The usually bustling stations up and down the East Coast Main Line came to a standstill for a minute as passengers and staff stopped to remember the ten who lost their lives. From Edinburgh down to King's Cross they paused and bowed their heads in a moving gesture of sympathy and compassion for the dead and injured.

At Newcastle's Central Station more than 200 friends, family and colleagues of the victims gathered to say a tearful farewell as the departure board paid tribute to driver John Weddle, guard Ray Robson and chef Paul Taylor.

Platform 12 was transformed into an unofficial memorial, as mourners and strangers alike laid wreaths of all shapes and sizes.

Among them was GNER's chief executive Christopher Garnett who said afterwards: "The thing about the railway is the way everybody sticks together. There is an incredible family thing about it."

He added: "There is no doubt this accident has affected people. The letters we have received have been amazing."

Station supervisor Eddie Palmer, 56, was close to tears as he remembered his dead friends. "It was nice to see so many paying their respects," he said.

Leigh Taylor, the grieving widow of chef Paul, was among those there and despite her pain she still had time to think of Gary Hart, the inconsolable driver of the Land Rover which caused the smash. "We do not blame the car driver involved in the accident and we are thinking of him and his family," she said.

"This is a very difficult time and we need time to come to terms with what has happened."

At York station a similar scene was solemnly enacted, as more than 300 passengers and staff came to a silent halt at the stroke of noon. And in a Book of Condolence they detailed the emotional impact which the tragedy, the result of a cruel series of coincidences, had made.

One of the many entries read simply: "You touched us all. Our thoughts are with you.