TRAIN companies have been losing £2m a day because of flood damage and speed restrictions in the wake of the Hatfield crash.

East Coast mainline operator GNER has been one of the biggest losers, with an estimated £500,000 a day disappearing in lost ticket sales and compensation pay-outs.

Railtrack is now to meet Health and Safety Executive officials on Monday to discuss removing some of the speed restrictions, to relieve pressure on the industry.

The Association of Train Operating Companies yesterday revealed the extent of the daily financial losses, following October's crash at Hatfield.

GNER normally carries about 35,000 passengers a day, paying a total of £1m for their tickets.

But the company is now operating only 56 per cent of its regular mainline services between the North-East and London.

A GNER spokesman said trains that were running were fuller than normal, but passenger numbers were believed to be well down.

He said figures were not yet available for how many passengers had been carried since the Hatfield crash.

The company has reported a 26 per cent increase in passenger numbers since April 1996, but there are concerns this trend could suffer a severe setback.

The spokesman added: "When there are disruptions on the railways we find people don't travel, or if they have bought tickets they come to us for refunds.

"The difference this time is the disruption is so prolonged we're not sure how many of those will come back.

"We hope that as soon as we're able to run our full frequency of services we will be back up again to the numbers we had before."

Speed restrictions mean mainline services in the North-East are now hourly instead of half-hourly, with an estimated journey time between Darlington and King's Cross of four-and-a-half hours instead of the normal two-and-three-quarter hours.

A meeting between Railtrack and the HSE on Monday to consider lifting restrictions comes after claims the go-slow could increase the risk to passengers.

An article in the Economist magazine claimed that drivers were more likely to go through danger signals because they were distracted by having to look through 16 pages of details on speed restrictions.