A number of people are injured after two trains collided north of London Friday, a United Kingdom official said.
British Transport Police said Friday it was responding to reports of the collision “in the Bedford area,” referring to a market town around 56 miles north of England’s capital. Other emergency services said they were attending to the incident.
“I am being kept updated on the collision of two trains between Luton and Bedford,” James Murray, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, wrote on social media. “A number of people have been injured and I thank first responders who are helping those affected.”
Unverified social media footage appeared to show two East Midlands Railway trains having collided, with one running into the other, and passengers pictured standing on the tracks beside damaged rail carriages. The trains appeared to have remained upright on the track, according to a video posted by CBS News partner BBC News.
Passenger Peter Knapp told the BBC that he saw “bloodied faces” and passengers that appeared to have broken legs. He had injured his own back, he said.
“I felt like I’d been in a bomb explosion,” Knapp told the BBC. He said there was “smoke everywhere” within the train carriages and that he couldn’t “imagine what the situation of the (train) driver is.”
East of England Ambulance Service said on social media it had sent “a number of resources,” including an air ambulance and a hazardous area response team, to a “major incident on the railway south of Bedford.”
Meanwhile, Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service said its “crews are currently in attendance at an incident on the railway just south of Bedford.”
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said she was “deeply concerned” by the collision reports.
The rail operator Thameslink, which serves the region, said on its X account that “all lines are blocked between Luton and Bedford… due to a problem under investigation.” East Midlands Railway said that trains to and from London St. Pancras have been suspended, with customers advised not to travel this evening.
England’s Rail Accident Investigation Branch said on X that a team of inspectors is at the site of the collision, and will investigate the incident.
Train collisions are relatively rare in Britain.
In September 2023, several people were injured after two trains collided at Aviemore railway station in the Highlands of Scotland. The crash happened on the Strathspey Railway, a heritage railway run separately from mass-transit public services, and involved a stationary carriage and another train in the station. One of the trains involved was the record-breaking, century-old Flying Scotsman, the first steam train to reach over 100 miles an hour, the National Railway Museum said.
In August 2020, an early morning service from Aberdeen to Glasgow came off the tracks, killing three people near the town of Stonehaven, northeast Scotland, after a landslip caused by heavy rain.The driver of the train, a conductor and a passenger died. Six other people were injured.
Network Rail — an arm of the U.K. Department for Transport — pleaded guilty in 2023 to safety failings at a court hearing and the public body was fined $8.4 million.
