'I had no idea if I'd live or die': Ufton Nervet survivors recall UK's worst 21st century rail crash 20 years on

At twelve minutes past six on November 6 2004, a Great Western high speed train struck a car on a level crossing between Reading and Newbury.

It had been parked in the path of the train by a local chef who intended to take his own life.

But the catastrophic derailment also took the lives of six other people. More than 70 passengers were taken to hospital with serious injuries, and 120 people in all were hurt.

"It was like being inside a tumble dryer," passenger Jane Hawker told RAIL. "I had no idea whether I would live or die. I choose not to put myself back there, but I can remember the sensations.

"With the perspective of 20 years, I can see how much it has influenced my life. I have had a lot of counselling, a lot of therapy. I have successfully dealt with it. It has been a very gradual process. "

The train hit the car at almost 100mph. The car then caught in a set of points leading to a freight loop beyond the crossing.

As the front of the train came off the rails and slowed down, the rear was still at full speed. The train jackknifed in the middle.

The train driver, Stan Martin, was among the dead.

Passengers Anjanette Rossi and her nine-year-old daughter Louella from Newbury both died.

"It was a very long night," said Ellener Bromfield, Anjanette's sister and Louella's aunt. "The following morning, I was still phoning my sister's mobile, because I didn't want to believe it. She didn't pick up.

"It changes you. Because your life has changed. I want to tell them about my children's children. I want to know how many children Louella should be having. So I get cross still."

Twelve years after the incident, the level crossing was closed and replaced by a bridge. The process of closing the crossing took far longer than the railway had expected. Getting planning permission took time, as did acquiring part of a field from landowner Richard (now Lord) Benyon’s Englefield Estate. At the time he was the MP for Newbury.

During the years in between, there had been four further fatal incidents at the same automatic half-barrier crossing.

More than 400 similar crossings remain.

At the inquest, the coroner heard that both the train and the level crossing had been operating correctly, and that no railway staff were at fault.

Network Rail declined to be interviewed about improvements made since the crash. But in a statement, safety and engineering director Martin Frobisher said: "Serious accidents at level crossings are extremely rare. For many years now, we have been running a crossing closure programme with over 1,000 closed since Ufton Nervet."

The number of deaths at level crossings has fallen by two-thirds in the decades since then, according to the Rail Safety and Standards Board, RSSB.

On average, two people a year still die on level crossings.

The HST, dating from the 1970s, has since been withdrawn from this route. The same type of train was involved in the Carmont crash near Stonehaven in 2020, in which three people died. At the Ufton Nervet inquest, questions were raised about the strength of the glass in the carriage windows: some passengers were hurled out of the train through the windows during the crash.

"We have done a lot of work on the crashworthiness of train vehicles and on their interior design,” Mark Phillips, chief executive of RSSB, told RAIL. “Modern vehicles have better protection in terms of glass and shatter resistance. We looked at seat belts for passengers. That was ruled out.

"There has been an improvement in the safety risk at level crossings, to the point where it is no longer one of the biggest risks that the industry is concerned about."

Ellener Bromfield, Jane Hawker and Julie Lloyds will join other families and survivors at the memorial garden alongside the site of the crash. They gather at the same time every year, but expect more people to arrive for this anniversary.

"I can't move on," said Ellener, who will bring her father to help mark the death of his daughter and granddaughter. "It's always there in the background; there are too many things I still want to tell my sister. I don't like hearing a train. And I will never get on a train."

Jane has moved from Newbury to Devon. "I didn't go on trains at all until the level crossing at Ufton Nervet was replaced by a road bridge," she said. "Before that, I couldn't even stand on a station with a train going by. Now I go on trains.

"Among the survivors there was a real community. It was so extreme, it was outside the experience of my existing circle of friends. We needed each other. We all had different experiences, but we could each relate what we had been through."

“In the years after the crash, I read everything I could about safety improvements. But I stopped doing that until quite recently, when there was talk about reducing the number of staff on the trains. I feel strongly about that. In the crash, the driver was dead, killed instantly. So it was the train manager who activated the warning to trains coming along behind.”

"I can remember it as if it was yesterday, unfortunately," said Julie, who survived the crash unscathed, but witnessed many others who did not. "It took a long time to get over it. It’s not going to go away, but it's not something that rules my day any more. I travelled on a train on my own for the first time this year, and I went past this place on my way to London.

“But I still won’t go on a train in the dark, because I still remember the total, complete darkness of the carriage after the crash.

"A think a lot of lessons were learned. I still wonder whether enough have been learned. Surely half-barrier crossings could be replaced, and cameras at every crossing?

"Removing this level crossing made a lot of difference. This crossing had a reputation, with all the other incidents in the years after ours.

“I can relax when I go past here now.

"To my mind, peace has returned to this area."