Community comes together after fatal crash

Doctors, nurses, taxi drivers and restaurant owners all came together to help people on the evening of a fatal crash where two East Midlands Railway trains collided on Friday.

Emergency crews were called to the tracks near Bedford at about 17:15 BST. Train driver Shaun Burton died and over 100 other people were taken to hospital.

British Transport Police said 53 people remained in hospital on Monday after the Corby-London St Pancras and the Nottingham-St Pancras services collided.

Bedford taxi driver Danny Hussain said he started work at 18:00 and his firm started to give doctors and nurses free trips so they could travel to and from hospital.

He said the taxi firm had received a lot of calls from the railway station and decided to start a free service in order to help out.

Hussain explained that there were 60 drivers already working that evening, but he called round and managed to get about 35 more.

Speaking to the BBC's Janine Machin during a special live show from Bedford railway station on Monday evening, he said he did it "just to help out and give something back to the community".

He said he was "very shocked" to hear the news and added that his Friday shifts usually started at the station as it was very busy.

"I spoke to a doctor who had finished a 12-hour shift and she was one who had got a taxi back home and had come back to work to help out."

Dr Peter Knapp was sitting in the front carriage of the train that crashed into the other service.

Despite injuring his leg and back he managed to open the door, disembarked and filmed footage of the aftermath of the crash.

He said: "The train exploded into this kind of frenzy; it felt to me as though it was a bomb explosion.

"Because I thought it was a bomb, I thought it important to get off the train as quick as possible. I managed to open the doors, but only I could get out."

Steven Row, who has been a railway chaplain for 13 years, arrived at the scene on Friday evening and did not leave until 02:00 BST and praised workers.

"The adrenaline kicks in and the training kicks in and that high level of professionalism kicks in, but later on they'll start thinking about it," he said.

Row said he held regular well-being meetings with his team.

Tom Wootton, Mayor of Bedford Borough, said he was impressed with how everyone came together "in the most tragic situation".

"People were helping, it was that type of wartime spirit," he said.

"We just had to get on with it, and they did."

He said doctors, churches, restaurants, taxi drivers and scouts all wanted to show their support.

Wootton told the BBC about a GP who had multiple injuries herself, but still stayed to support others.

He said a lot of people who had to get off the train that evening were not local.

Burton had been a Huntingdonshire district councillor, for the Stukeleys ward at the Cambridgeshire local authority until 2022, and he had been driving the Corby train.

Thomas Sanderson, who has been a councillor in the same ward since 2004,paid tribute: "He was the sort of person you would want as your next door neighbour.

"None of us could quite believe that he has gone.

"None of us know precisely what happened, but I know the sort of person Shaun was. He always thought of others before he thought of himself.

"He was a very decent and down-to-earth person."

Do you have a story suggestion for Beds, Herts or Bucks? Contact us below.

Follow Beds, Herts and Bucks news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.