MYSTERY SURROUNDS the death of a man killed by a train near the Forth Bridge on Friday night, writes Leeza Clark.

It is believed the body of the 38-year-old lay unnoticed for 10 hours until it was spotted by the driver of a freight train who raised the alarm shortly before 10 am on Saturday.

Yesterday, the identity of the man had not been released by British Transport Police who are investigating.

A spokeswoman confirmed the man was struck and killed by a train near North Queensferry station at 11.55 pm on Friday.

“There are no suspicious circumstances and a report will be submitted to the procurator fiscal,” she added.

Although the transport police and Network Rail would not release details of where the body was found, it is thought more than 20 passenger and freight trains passed over the bridge in the time the man lay dead on the line.

Freight carriers EWS Railway said the body was discovered by one of its drivers who was operating a slow-moving goods train to Inverkeithing to the Drax power station at Selby in North Yorkshire.

Network Rail said no security arrangements prevent the public from walking onto the bridge.

“We have 20,000 miles of railway and it would be impossible to police it 24 hours a day,” said a spokesman.

“CCTV cameras aren’t generally installed for preventative reasons, but to capture things on record.”

The body of the man was removed from the bridge and the rail line was “handed back” to the rail network before lunchtime on Saturday.

Widespread disruption was caused on the line with many trains being delayed and other services cancelled.

One passenger on the 9.06 am service from Dundee to Kings Cross in London said the train was delayed for hours.

The train was stopped at 10 am near Burntisland while an announcement told passengers there had been a major incident and the train would be halted indefinitely.

A spokesman for First ScotRail said services were affected from the discovery of the body on the line at 9.50 am until noon when the route re-opened.

“There were no First ScotRail trains on the bridge at that time,” he said.

The incident did cause disruption to Fife circle services and Edinburgh trains had been affected.

The Edinburgh to Aberdeen trains were all diverted via Stirling.

Edinburgh to Markinch and Edinburgh to Cowdenbeath services were cancelled for a time.

Some 200 people bound for Edinburgh were also stopped at Inverkeithing for some time.

After the line reopened there were still some delays but services were returning to normal during the day with the Inverkeithing to Edinburgh route operating as normal from 2 pm.

The bridge is also used by GNER and Virgin as well as the freight carriers EWS.

Balfour Beatty is carrying out work on the bridge at present.

However, but a spokeswoman said the dead man had not been part of any work crew there.

“He isn’t a member of the Balfour Beatty workforce and is not associated with our work,” she added.

Councillor Jim Philp, whose ward covers North Queensferry, said “My sympathy goes to the family of the man.”