Nine people remain in a life-threatening condition after a serious train collision that killed one driver and left dozens of passengers injured.
The crash happened at about 5.15pm on Friday, when a Luton Airport Express service struck the rear of a stationary East Midlands Railway (EMR) train. Passengers described suffering broken bones and being left “spitting out blood” in the aftermath.
By Saturday morning, nine people were still critically ill, down from 11 on Friday night, while 28 people remained in hospital, according to British Transport Police Chief Constable Lucy D’Orsi.
A further 32 people sustained serious injuries, and 56 others were treated for minor injuries. In total, more than 80 people received hospital care following the collision.
Several passengers said they were thrown from their seats into tables and chairs in front of them before smoke began filling the carriages. Fire crews later confirmed the smoke was not caused by a fire.
Brett Byatt, a teacher from Bedford who was travelling on one of the trains, said he believed possible technical failures and the condition of Britain’s ageing rail infrastructure may have played a role. He said that while he felt stunned immediately after the crash, his dominant emotion now was “anger”.
Mr Byatt also questioned how a train driver had died in the incident, saying signal failures are a regular occurrence across the UK rail network.
“Yesterday, I was pretty, like, shocked,” he said. “This morning, it feels surreal, and I think I’ve moved into the stage of anger now. I’m feeling pretty angry.”
He added: ‘I don’t know at whom, who specifically, but it’s more about we’ve got one of the oldest railway networks and signal failures happen a lot, and now I’m just wondering… why wasn’t that signalled to my train and why did that train driver lose his life over this?’
Investigations are ongoing and there has been no official finding as to the cause of the crash.
Picture shows the aftermath of the train crash near Bedford today
Passengers filmed the aftermath of the incident, which showed panicked travellers lying on the floor and crying out for help
Members of an investigations team inspect the line and train at the scene of the crash
Mr Byatt told the BBC that he thought 90 per cent of people on his carriage had serious injuries, with some unable to stand or move their neck.
Investigators are examining whether a fault with the stationary train’s safety systems may have played a role in the crash. The system is designed to automatically apply the brakes if a driver fails to acknowledge an approaching red signal.
It is understood the Luton Airport Express train collided with the stationary EMR service, while its driver was reporting an issue to maintenance staff by phone.
Police said on Saturday that the family of the driver who died, who has not been named, has been informed and is being supported by specialist officers.
Speaking at a press conference near the scene Chief Constable D’Orsi said: ‘Tragically, the driver of one of the trains died in the collision.
‘His family have been informed and our deepest condolences are with them, his friends, and his colleagues at East Midlands Railway.
‘The driver’s family, as you would expect, are being supported by specially trained officers at this difficult time.’
A railway expert said today that investigators would ‘already know’ what happened in the Bedford rail crash from ‘second by second’ airline-style black box recorders in the trains.
Rail journalist Tony Miles said they recorded ‘every switch that was pressed and every control that was activated’ in both trains.
He praised staff on the trains for ‘acting very quickly to protect the railway’ by ‘laying wires across the adjacent tracks’ to trigger a secondary signalling system in case the first one had failed.
In an interview with the BBC, Mr Miles, from Modern Railways magazine, said the questions that need answering are: ‘Were the signals showing red and the train went past them or were the signals showing that the line was clear and, if so, how were they able to know when the train in front was stopped?’
‘That should be impossible because as long as the track is occupied, it shouldn’t be possible to clear the signals,’ he explained.
Mr Miles said that while a driver could theoretically make a decision to cross a red signal if he wanted to ‘they would normally only do that because they had been given permission by a signal box because there was a fault’.
Investigations into the crash are ongoing and there has been no official finding as to the cause of the collision
Brett Byatt, a teacher from Bedford, questioned why a train driver had lost his life in the collision, adding that signal failures happen all the time on the UK’s railway network
Investigators are examining whether a fault with the stationary train’s safety systems may have played a role in the crash
A crime scene manager from the British Transport Police photographs the inside of an electrical box at the side of a train track near where the crash occurred
It appears that the East Midlands Railway train was stationary when it was hit by the Luton Airport Express
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An aerial image taken yesterday shows police and rail engineers at the scene in the aftermath of the crash
Shocked passengers, some with visible injuries, sit dazed and confused on the side of the railway tracks
‘The drivers would stop at a red signal regardless and talk on their radio,’ he explained.
‘So the two questions will be: “Were the signals showing red and the train went past them?” or “Has something catastrophically gone wrong with the electronics system that interlocks itself so it can’t allow a dangerous situation to happen that allowed the train to go past?”‘
He said the moving train was ‘going quite slowly as it was crossing a lot of points to get to the other line’ so the question would be ‘was it cleared to do that?’
A video taken inside one of the carriages shows panicked travellers lying on the floor and crying out for help. One person can be heard frantically saying, ‘We need to get off.’
Eyewitness, Dr Pete Knapp, 40, who was travelling in the front carriage of one of the trains, said his first thought was that a ‘terrorist bomb’ had gone off.
‘There was a moment of being flung into the chair in front, and then I saw smoke. People were crying, screaming, people were so scared and confused,’ he said.
‘I got up and I saw a lot of people who were unable to speak, had broken legs, and then I managed to get out of the train and because I’m quite thin I was able to squeeze out through the gap in the doors.’
He added that some people were ‘spitting out blood’.
On Saturday, a Buckingham Palace spokesperson said: ‘His Majesty is greatly saddened by the rail crash in Bedford yesterday evening and is being kept regularly updated on developments.
‘His thoughts and sympathies are with the family of the deceased and with all those injured or affected by such a tragic incident.’
Eddie Dempsey, the general secretary of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers confirmed last night that the person who had died was a train driver.
He said in a statement: ‘We are devastated to learn that a train driver and former RMT rep has tragically died as a result of today’s crash between Luton and Bedford. The thoughts of RMT are with their family, friends, colleagues and the Aslef trade union at this awful time.’
Dave Calfe, general secretary of the train drivers’ union Aslef, added: ‘Our thoughts tonight are with the family and friends of the driver who died in the crash near Bedford today and with the passengers who were injured in the accident.
Investigators are examining whether a fault with the stationary train’s safety systems may have played a role in the crash. The system is designed to automatically apply the brakes if a driver fails to acknowledge an approaching red signal
Will Rogers from East Midlands Railway speaks to members of the media near the scene just south of the Elstow interchange between the A421 and the A6 in Bedford
A Buckingham Palace spokesperson said: ‘His Majesty is greatly saddened by the rail crash in Bedford yesterday evening and is being kept regularly updated on developments’
Not only was the rail line suspended in Bedford, but the police closed roads in the area, too, only allowing access to rail staff and emergency services
‘We want to thank the emergency services who responded so quickly, to help those on board, and are still at the scene.’
EMR services to and from London St Pancras were suspended for the rest of the day and commuters experienced severe delays to their journeys.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said his thoughts are with the family of the driver who died in the train collision, as well as the people who were injured.
In a statement on X, Sir Keir said: ‘Hugely concerning reports of a collision involving two passenger trains near Bedford. First and foremost, my thoughts are with the family of the person who has sadly lost their life, and with those who have been seriously injured.
‘I am grateful to the emergency services for their swift response to this tragic incident.’
The two trains involved were the 4.40pm from Corby and the 3.50pm from Nottingham, both heading to London’s St Pancras International station.
Most carriages of the two southbound trains remained on the tracks but at least one derailed.
Online train trackers show the rolling stock involved in the crash were a class 360 and class 810. The front of the former hit the rear of the latter.
EMR began rolling out class 810s in December last year, and class 360s are at least 20 years old.
Talking to Sky New, said the damage to the trains looked ‘fairly minimal’.
He said: ‘Obviously it’s a rear end collision, they were going in the same direction, so one of them, the rear one was going faster than the one it’s caught up with, for some reason. That’s not a complicated assumption.
‘So, the question has to be how has that train that’s in the rear got into contact with the train that it was following, and obviously it’s either gone past the signal that was telling it it should stop, or the signal was faulty, or the driver’s made a mistake in some way, or didn’t read the signal, or something.
‘Over the years, all of those different scenarios have happened, and it’s now a question of finding out why did one train catch up with the train that was in front of it, that was obviously going more slowly.
‘Whether it was stopped. I don’t know, but I say from the collision damage it looked like a relatively low speed collision.
‘So either the train in the rear was already slowing down or they were both going fairly slowly, and something’s happened, but it’s not a high-speed crash, certainly from the damage.’
He added: ‘Even if you’re going 40 miles an hour and you come to a halt in a few meters, you’ve got the energy of a 40-mile-an-hour body in you, and you’re going to move until you hit something, unfortunately. So, even relatively low speed collisions can be dangerous for people that are on board.’
