Train crash passenger was fearing explosion

A passenger travelling on the train from Nottingham that crashed, killing a driver and injuring about 100 people, has described the experience as "bewildering and frightening".

Aleister Adamson was on the 15:50 Nottingham to London St Pancras train when it was involved in a collision with the 16:40 service from Corby to London St Pancras near Bedford on Friday.

The barrister told the BBC that following the initial impact, he was fearful there was going to be an explosion and fire.

As well as the fatality, as of Saturday morning 28 people remained in hospital, with nine of these described as critically injured.

Adamson was travelling with a number of colleagues and said they had all been commenting on how slowly the train was moving.

"All of a sudden a really big impact," he said. "I immediately felt myself lurching forward and saw my colleagues across from me getting thrown around.

"It just felt like the collision went on for quite a long time, it didn't feel like one solid thump, it felt like a sequence of impacts.

"Looking back now I can only imagine it was the force of the initial impact followed by each carriage on our train shunting into the one in front of it."

Even when the collision subsided, Adamson said the situation did not improve.

"What was almost as scary was in the minutes afterwards trying to figure out what had happened because we didn't know what the cause of the impact was and everybody was so shocked by what had happened and there were people screaming," he said.

"It was bewildering and frightening.

"My mind immediately took me to thoughts of an explosion and if there had been an explosion there would be a fire and that would be obviously dangerous on a train.

"Your mind just takes you to all of these scary places."

After a few minutes he decided to get off the train and into a nearby field, where they were met by emergency services.

"There were lots of people coming off the train who looked like they were very severely injured, there was lots of blood," he said.

"Lots of people were clearly frightened and upset by what had happened and they were being taken to the ambulances to get treatment.

"I remember looking back when I was on the field and with the benefit of distance I could see there had been two trains and it looked like the one train had come into the back of ours."

Adamson said he was due to travel on the same line again in the coming days and described the prospect as "emotionally demanding".

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