Train driver sobs over fatal crash in Vic

A train driver choked back tears at an inquest which heard there was nothing he
could do to avoid a crash with a truck which killed 11 people.
At a coronial inquest into the deaths, V/Line driver Barry Lidster has described a
"chaotic" scene after a truck driven by Christian Scholl slammed into his train at a
level crossing in northern Victoria on June 5, 2007.
He believes there is no training that could have prepared him for what he faced when
he walked into carriage B of his Swan Hill to Melbourne train.
Conductor Jodie Burford, who rushed to the aid of passengers, recalled seeing a hole
in the train and bodies on top of each other.
"It was like I had gone to some other planet," she said.
Minutes earlier, Ms Burford had been serving customers in the buffet as Mr Lidster
drove the train towards a crossing near Kerang.
Mr Lidster told the inquest in Bendigo he noticed a semi-trailer travelling too fast
to stop.
"I thought: 'There's nothing I can do now'," he said in a statement tendered at the
inquest.
"I was focused on the truck. I knew he wasn't going to hit the engine.
"I was hoping that he was going to miss the train. I didn't feel a lot, I heard the
noise.
"I looked back and I could see the second carriage on an angle.
"After I stopped, I didn't realise the full extent. I knew the truck hit me."
At the inquest on Wednesday, he choked up as he described running to the back of the
train.
"A bloke came towards me. He informed me the people in the third carriage were
dead," he said.
Mr Lidster said he saw a horrific scene of people covered in blood, debris and dust.
Giving her evidence, Ms Burford said she became aware something was wrong when her
food display was sprayed with debris.
"The carriage was filling up with dust and it was rocking. It was getting worse and
I thought the car was going to roll and that the fridge was going to crush me," she
said.
She then walked towards the back of the carriage, passing two men lying on top of
each other.
"It was here that I looked up and saw the hole in the train," she said.
"I just couldn't believe what I (was seeing). There were people screaming, bodies on
top of each other."
Ms Burford said she struggles to understand why doctors from Kerang did not attend
the scene.
"I was very angry, it just doesn't make sense to me," she said.
Earlier, Coroner Jane Hendtlass said her thoughts were with all the people in Kerang
affected by the current floods.
She said some witnesses had been unable to attend Wednesday's inquest because of the
floods.
A minute's silence was held in court in memory of the 11 people, aged between five
and 83, who died in the level crossing accident.
The inquest continues on Thursday.