Hi Grahame

Point taken - Obviously life goes on - I went on to a meeting myself afterwards. I think it was the tone of 'how dare I be inconvenienced by this', which I did also hear on the train - from a woman who had seen the body to a member of staff - which is hard. In fact our train moved on after about 15 minutes - probably in part because they didn't want to keep that many members of the public where they could still see the body. Although it was a bit late for that by then. In fact the train I was on was already delayed by 40 minutes before this happened, but that's an entirely separate issue.

I was on one of the first trains on the scene at Burnham on Thursday. I looked out of the window to see why we^d stopped and saw the woman lying on the next track about 6 feet away. This was before any emergency services were on the scene. I found the talk of ^disruption to services^ quite shocking in light of the fact that a woman had died and was, at that point, alone out there. The passengers in my carriage were extremely shocked and it was obvious that train staff, when they came to evacuate the carriage, were too. I don^t think it should ever be forgotten that this was someone^s life and death ^ and a pretty public and anonymous death at that. She will have family and friends who are grieving for her and I don^t think that should ever be pushed aside so that people aren^t late for their meetings. I know it^s important to keep services running and I get as cross as anyone about poor service but that is not what this was. If we don^t value human life and show respect for the dead then we really are only animals.

There were children in the carriage ahead of ours (who blessedly seemed unaware of what had happened) but I don^t think there should ever be the risk of them seeing what I saw. I^m finding it pretty hard to come to terms with myself. It didn^t look to me as though the woman had been hit by a train directly, in which case it^s hard to see how it could have happened. In this case it would seem to me even more important that finding out what had happened to her was the absolute priority.

My heartfelt sympathy goes to those who loved her.