(Bloomberg News circulated the following story on November 7.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A main rail line between London and southwest England will remain closed for “a number of days” as U.K. police investigate the derailment yesterday of a FirstGroup Plc train, in which seven people lost their lives.
The train to Plymouth from London’s Paddington station, carrying 300 passengers, hit a car on a level crossing near the village of Ufton Nervet, west of Reading, at 6:12 p.m. yesterday, Detective Chief Constable Andy Trotter said.
An off-duty policeman who witnessed the crash said the car had apparently “stopped” on the tracks, Trotter said.
The driver of the car and the train driver were among six people confirmed dead on Saturday. A spokeswoman for the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading this evening confirmed that a seventh person, a male, had died from his injuries.
“He was the only one of our patients who was in a life- threatening position,” the hospital spokeswoman said. “We have got a remaining seven patients with minor injuries and four more serious but stable. They are not life-threatening.”
Dozens of people were injured in the accident, Agence France- Presse reported, citing unidentified medics and John Divall, a spokesman for the Royal Berkshire Ambulance Service. Sixty-one people were treated at the Royal Berkshire Hospital, Sky News reported.
The train was travelling at about 100 miles an hour (160 kilometers) at the time of the incident, which is the deadliest involving a British train since seven people died in May 2002 in a derailment at Potter’s Bar north of London.
“There will be a meticulous investigation to find out the cause” of the derailment, Trotter said in a press conference carried on Sky. “Scene-of-crime officers for British Transport Police are combing the site, taking evidence from the train, fields and motor vehicle.”
Trotter said all eight of the carriages and the two engines derailed. It is “remarkable that so many people escaped from such a devastating scene,” Trotter said.
British Transport Police said all bodies have been removed from the wreckage. On Monday “police will start to recover passengers’ and other property from the scene. The lifting and recovery of the carriages is also likely to begin,” BTP said in a statement on its Web site.