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British Transport Police said Friday it was responding to reports of a bid collision northbound of London, with different exigency services saying they were attending to the incidental amid media reports of injuries.
"We're responding to reports of a collision involving 2 trains successful the Bedford area," the transport constabulary unit said connected X, referring to a marketplace municipality astir 56 miles northbound of England's capital.
East Midlands Railway, which operated the train, said "emergency services are dealing with an incidental betwixt London St Pancras and Leicester."
Unverified societal media footage appeared to amusement 2 East Midlands Railway trains having collided, with 1 moving into the other, and passengers pictured lasting connected the tracks beside damaged obstruction carriages. The trains appeared to person remained upright connected the track, according to a video posted by CBS News spouse BBC News.
There person been section media reports of injuries, but exigency services person not yet provided immoderate details. Passenger Peter Knapp told the BBC that helium saw "bloodied faces" and passengers that appeared to person breached legs. He had injured his ain back, helium said.
"I felt similar I'd been successful a weaponry explosion," Knapp told the BBC. He said determination was "smoke everywhere" wrong the bid carriages and that helium couldn't "imagine what the concern of the (train) operator is."
East of England Ambulance Service said connected societal media it had sent "a fig of resources," including an aerial ambulance and a hazardous country effect team, to a "major incidental connected the railway southbound of Bedford."
Meanwhile, Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service said its "crews are presently successful attendance astatine an incidental connected the railway conscionable southbound of Bedford."
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said she was "deeply concerned" by the collision reports.
The obstruction relation Thameslink, which besides serves the region, said connected its X relationship that "all lines are blocked betwixt Luton and Bedford... owed to a occupation nether investigation." East Midlands Railway said that trains to and from London St. Pancras person been suspended, with customers advised not to question this evening.
Train collisions are comparatively uncommon successful Britain.
In September 2023, respective radical were injured aft 2 trains collided astatine Aviemore railway presumption successful the Highlands of Scotland. The clang happened connected the Strathspey Railway, a practice railway tally separately from mass-transit nationalist services, and progressive a stationary carriage and different bid successful the station. One of the trains progressive was the record-breaking, century-old Flying Scotsman, the archetypal steam bid to scope implicit 100 miles an hour, the National Railway Museum said.
In August 2020, an aboriginal greeting work from Aberdeen to Glasgow came disconnected the tracks, sidesplitting 3 radical adjacent the municipality of Stonehaven, northeast Scotland, aft a landslip caused by dense rain.The operator of the train, a conductor and a rider died. Six different radical were injured.
Network Rail — an limb of the U.K. Department for Transport — pleaded blameworthy successful 2023 to information failings astatine a tribunal proceeding and the nationalist assemblage was fined $8.4 million.
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