RESULTS of an inquiry into the derailment of a train in a busy town centre will not be made public. An inquiry has been launched to establish how an empty two carriage Sprinter train ran through buffers and off the rails, ploughing through a tract of waste ground before stopping.

Northern Spirit, the operators of the train which derailed just outside Middlesbrough railway station, said it was an internal inquiry and the results would not be published. The train came to rest only 40ft from, and 12ft above, busy Station Street, on the edge of Middlesbrough town centre in Monday's accident.

The carriages were yesterday being minutely examined at engineering workshops at Heaton, Newcastle, though initial reports indicated no obvious mechanical fault.

A Railtrack spokeswoman said: "As far as we are concerned, Railtrack has completed its part of the investigation and we are satisfied there was no signalling or infrastructure defects.