British Transport Police said on Friday that it was responding to reports of a train “collision” north of the capital city of London amid media reports of injuries, with other emergency services also attending the scene.
Unverified footage posted to social media appeared to show two East Midlands Railway (EMR) trains having collided, with one running into the other, and passengers pictured standing on the tracks beside damaged rail carriages, AFP reported.
“A major incident has been declared, and officers are continuing to respond at the scene alongside colleagues from Bedfordshire Police and the local Fire and Rescue and Ambulance Services,” the police force said in an update late on Friday.
“We know that a number of people have been injured and one person has very sadly died,” it added.
National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers general secretary Eddie Dempsey said the fatality was a train driver. The East of England Ambulance Service later said that 11 people had very serious injuries, 22 were seriously injured, and 56 had minor injuries.
The trains appeared to remain upright on the track, according to the posted images posted online.
EMR said in a statement that emergency services were dealing with the incident between London’s St Pancras and Leicester.
“Emergency services are dealing with an incident between London St Pancras and Leicester,” EMR said on X, without providing further details.
Meanwhile, Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service said its “crews are currently in attendance at an incident on the railway just south of Bedford.”
The emergency services had yet to provide any details about injuries.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said she was “deeply concerned” by the collision reports.
The rail operator Thameslink, which also serves the region, said on its X account that “all lines are blocked between Luton and Bedford… due to a problem under investigation”.
Past train collisions 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, and six other people were injured in the tragedy.
Network Rail, an arm of the UK Department for Transport, pleaded guilty in 2023 to safety failings at a court hearing and was fined £6.7 million ($8.4 million).