Two East Midlands Railway passenger trains collided south of Bedford on Friday evening, killing the driver of one of the services and injuring 89 other people, British Transport Police and the East of England Ambulance Service said. The crash, in the Bedford area roughly 56 miles north of London, prompted authorities to declare a major incident shortly after the collision.
The scale of the response and the casualty count make the wreck the most serious mainline rail collision in Britain in years. The ambulance service said 11 of the injured had "very serious injuries," 22 were "seriously injured" and 56 sustained minor injuries. More than 20 ground ambulances, six air ambulances and specialized hazardous area response teams were dispatched to the site, alongside Bedfordshire Police and local fire crews.
What happened
An East Midlands Railway spokesperson told ABC News that a train traveling from Corby to London collided south of Bedford with a train traveling from Nottingham to London. Passenger accounts collected by the BBC and by LBC indicated the Corby service ran into the back of the Nottingham train, which had slowed to a stop. The carriages remained upright on the track, according to footage circulated by BBC News.
The dead man was the driver of one of the trains, said Eddie Dempsey, general secretary of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers. "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," Dempsey wrote on X.
On the scene
Peter Knapp, a passenger, told the BBC he saw "bloodied faces" and travelers who appeared to have broken legs. "I felt like I'd been in a bomb explosion," Knapp said, describing "smoke everywhere" inside the carriages. Bedford hospital was preparing for at least 50 casualties, LBC reported, and had ordered all available staff in.
British Transport Police Deputy Chief Constable Stuart Cundy said in a statement that officers were "working at pace to establish exactly what's happened." UK Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said she was "deeply concerned" by the reports and added that the government was "working quickly with the rail industry and local partners to support passengers." East Midlands Railway suspended services to and from London St. Pancras for the rest of the day and told customers not to travel.
Caveat
The cause of the collision had not been established by Friday night. Investigators have not said publicly whether signaling, braking, track conditions or human error contributed, and the eyewitness descriptions of a rear-end impact remain unverified. Train collisions are relatively rare in Britain; the last fatal mainline derailment, near Stonehaven in August 2020, killed three after a rain-triggered landslip, and Network Rail was fined $8.4 million in 2023 for safety failings tied to that crash.
The Rail Accident Investigation Branch said on X that a team of inspectors is at the site and will examine the wreckage in the coming days, the first formal step in a process that typically produces an interim bulletin within weeks and a full report within a year.