A Bermuda-based company is at the centre of a British passenger train crash which left at least 13 dead and more than 70 injured.

Sea Containers, a Bermuda registered company, owns Great North Eastern Railways (GNER) which was the train operator and runs part of the east coast line between Edinburgh and London.

The high-speed passenger train carrying about 100 people collided with a Land Rover, derailed and smashed into an oncoming freight train in northern England yesterday morning.

Sea Containers has three main lines of business: cargo container leasing, hotel and resort ownership and passenger transport.

It also owns GNER, which is one of the main operators of the London to Edinburgh Line.

Four people were killed and 30 injured on a GNER line on October 17 last year when a rail broke and a high-speed passenger train derailed.

Sea Containers passenger transport mainly involves passenger and vehicle ferry services operating in the English Channel, the Irish Sea and the Baltic Sea and the operation of three ports in Britain.

Sea Containers also owns a small commuter ferry company operating in New York Harbour.

In 1996 the company moved into rail travel when it was awarded a seven year franchise by the British government under the rail privatisation scheme. Under the franchise it operates high speed passenger trains along the east coast main line of Britain between London and Scotland. It is called GNER and is one of 25 former British Rail operations privatised by the government.

In 1999 GNER transported 14.7 million passengers on its 935 mile route which encompasses 50 stations.

The company's container leasing activities are run principally through GE SeaCo, a joint venture company established in 1998 on a 50/50 basis with General Electric Capital Corporation.

The company also manufactures, assembles and refurbishes containers at three sites in England and one in the US.

The hotel and resort side of the business involves owning and/or managing 22 deluxe hotels and resorts in the US, the Caribbean, Europe, southern Africa, Brazil, Australia and the South Pacific.

In November Sea Containers issued its third quarter figures which showed good results for the leisure and rail sides of the business, but lower earnings than expected from the ferry and container leasing sectors.

Revenue was $1.1 billion, an increase of $46 million on the same period in 1999.