THE driver who battled to stop a 95mph Glasgow train going down an embankment told how he called his girlfriend to stop all other trains on the track.

Iain Black stayed at the controls as all nine 50-tonne carriages of the Virgin Pendolino tilting train careered off the track, killing an 84-year-old Glasgow woman.

Iain was trapped in his cab for two hours with broken bones in his neck.

His partner, Janice Duff, 29, is a train manager with Virgin and Iain, 46, recalled: "My worst nightmare was another train hitting us.

"Jan is a trained manager with Virgin, so I phoned her because I knew she would know how to get traffic stopped.

"I just went into automatic mode. There were points where I blacked out.

But at one point I had been pushed towards the windscreen of the train and had a severe pain in my neck. I knew then I had severely damaged my neck. That was the worst pain."

Janice said: "I knew I had to keep calm and keep talking to him until the emergency services got to him."

Speaking at his Dumbarton home for the first time since the accident near Kendal, Cumbria, last month, Iain added: "I have since been told I could have died, but at that point I felt remarkably calm.

"I was losing a lot of blood, but I knew not to move because of the neck injury."

Doctors have told him it could be 12 to 24 months before he recovers completely and he has to wear a halo brace.

Margaret Masson, 84, from Cardonald, was killed and 22 others injured in the crash.

Iain was hailed a hero by Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson after he stayed at the controls.

But Iain insisted: "I don't see it as an act of heroism. It's my job to drive the train and that is where I should be.

"I've got to be in the cab to help the train and it never crossed my mind to leave."

Then he described the terrifying moment the engine leapt in the air and careered down an embankment.

He said the train was like a "violent bucking bronco" as the carriages hurtled off the tracks.

He said: "It was apparent that we were in serious bother because the train took off.

"The wheels came straight off and it was as if it leapt into the air. I knew immediately without a doubt I was in serious trouble. At that point I was hoping the train would come back down on to the tracks again.

"But I know now that was very unlikely because it was on a curve.

"It's all very sketchy but at some point I put the brake on. As a driver you are trained to react to these things."