The force of the collision threw passengers from their seats, leaving them with bloodied faces and broken legs. ‘People were crying, screaming, people were so scared and confused,’ said Dr Pete Knapp, who was in the front carriage of the train that ploughed into another. ‘When I got up, I saw all of the chairs everywhere. It felt like I’d been in a bomb explosion.’
The crash happened at 17:15 BST on Friday, just south of Elstow near the A421 and A6 interchange. Two East Midlands Railway services — the 16:40 from Corby and the 15:50 from Nottingham, both bound for London St Pancras — collided on the same line. The driver of one train, a former RMT representative, was killed. British Transport Police said 100 people were injured, with 11 suffering very serious injuries, 32 serious and 57 minor. On Saturday, 28 people remained in hospital, nine of them in a critical condition.
“Nine in critical condition after train crash near Bedford kills driver and injures 100.”
King Charles said he was ‘greatly saddened’ and was being kept regularly updated, Buckingham Palace said. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer described the crash as ‘hugely concerning’ and thanked emergency services. Chief Constable Lucy D’Orsi of British Transport Police urged the public not to speculate as specialist investigators worked with the Rail Accident Investigation Branch. ‘There will of course be a lot of questions,’ she said. ‘I would ask that we all refrain from speculation.’
Passenger Brett Byatt said he had moved from shock to anger. ‘We’ve got one of the oldest railway networks and signal failures happen a lot,’ he told the BBC. ‘Why wasn’t that signalled to my train and why did that train driver lose his life over this?’ Insiders told The Telegraph the train had stopped because of a fault with its Automatic Warning System, a safety system that prevents trains passing red signals. The Rail Accident Investigation Branch said it would conduct a ‘full, independent safety investigation’.
RMT general secretary Eddie Dempsey said the union was ‘devastated’ to learn the driver, a former rep, had died. Will Rogers, managing director of East Midlands Railway, called it ‘a profoundly sad day for the rail community’. Services between Luton and Bedford remained suspended, with trains starting and ending journeys in Bedford. ‘When I got up, I saw people’s bloodied faces and people’s legs looked broken and there was smoke everywhere,’ Knapp said. ‘I was able to squeeze out through the gap in the doors.’