EXPOSURE to asbestos while cleaning out steam engine boilers and fireboxes at a Gillingham depot led to the death of a pensioner, an inquest has heard.

Malcolm Dines, 71, of Pump Lane, Rainham, started as a cleaner for British Railways in 1947.

Mid-Kent and Medway coroner Roger Sykes heard at the Gillingham inquest that Mr Dines would get covered in asbestos dust when he had to climb inside the fireboxes of steam engines to clean them.

The engine shed was hot and dusty because it did not have any extraction fans, the inquest heard in a statement made by Mr Dines, shortly before he died on October 9.

Mr Dines later became a fireman and then a train driver before retiring.

A verdict of death by industrial disease malignant mesothelioma was recorded.