THE friend of a man who was killed by an express train told police: "One minute my mate was there, the next he was gone."

Christopher Wilson, 27, understood to be from Blackburn's Galligreaves estate, was killed on track a quarter of a mile from Mill Hill station at 7.45pm on Monday.

Mr Wilson was walking on an unauthorised point of the track on the Blackburn-bound side of the railway lines with a friend after having a drink, when a York to Blackpool express train hit him.

His friend, who has not been identified, escaped and walked in shock from the scene.

The driver of the train told police that he was convinced the train had hit two men, as they were simply not visible until the train was very close to them. Today police issued a stern warning to those who trespass on railway lines as short-cuts.

PC Neil Rawsthorne, of British Transport Police, said that in the run-up to Christmas the police annually are called to deaths on the tracks when people take short-cuts to pubs and parties.

PC Rawsthorne said: "We dread Christmas. There are that many more people going out who have got to get to the pub for last orders and every year we have familiar cases of people ending up on the railway dead.

"The driver thought he had hit two on Monday. One walked off in a state of shock and reported it to the police. This man told police that one minute his mate was there and the next he wasn't. They were just walking along chatting."

PC Rawsthorne said that lights on trains are not as powerful as lights on cars and that even though the train on Monday night would have been travelling at 40mph it would have taken hundreds of metres to stop.

He said: "The message is not to trespass on train tracks at all. It's not a quicker route, there are all sorts of lose stones and objects under-foot and it's is extremely dangerous."

The stretch of the track where Mr Wilson was killed has been bordered by six feet high metal fencing in the last three weeks.

These fences have been put up by Network Rail in residential areas to stop people from crossing the track illegally and dangerously.

Police believe Mr Wilson was taking a short cut.

Philip Hacking, a hairdresser in New Chapel Street, Mill Hill, said: "It's happened three times in five years that people have been killed here.

"A customer's son saw a stretcher being pulled up the steps from the platform and on to ambulance. One was covered in blood and one was covered up on a stretcher. It's a sad job."

Network Rail have spend millions of pounds a year renewing and replacing fences beside tracks in the North West.