How Ladbroke Grove train crash unfolded - loud bang, horror injuries and tragic missed chance

The 1999 Paddington rail crash was one of the worst train disasters in 20th century British history. We take a look back at the devastation it caused 25 years on

The Ladbroke Grove rail crash killed 31 people and injured hundreds more, prompting a public inquiry amid concerns about the safety of trains on our networks.

Also known as the Paddington rail crash, it was the second major disaster on the Great Western Main Line in just over two years - the 1997 Southall rail crash had caused 7 deaths and 139 injuries.

One survivor of the 1999 Ladbroke Grove tragedy, barrister Greg Treverton-Jones, was on the high speed train travelling from Cheltenham to Paddington when it collided almost head on with a train heading away from the London station to Bedwyn, Wiltshire.

The lawyer, who worked as a junior counsel on the subsequent public inquiry into the disaster, later described a scene of complete horror to the Guardian. "I saw burned and blackened figures walking up and down the embankment," said Greg. "One man had terrible burns. The skin was hanging off his hands like a spider's web, his face was black and bloodied and his trousers were in tatters."

We take a look back, 25 years on from one of the worst train disasters in 20th century British history...

At 8:06 am on Tuesday, October 5, 1999, the Thames Train service to Bedwyn railway station in Wiltshire left Paddington Station. It was a two mile route to Ladbroke Grove, with bi-directional lines meaning trains could travel either way.

The Thames Train service should have been held at a red signal at Portobello Junction until a train had passed in the other direction. This didn't happen, leading to a devastating near head on collision with a Great Western high speed train from Cheltenham to Paddington, which was travelling the other way, at 8.09am.

Passengers had heard no warning like a screech of brakes or the sound of a horn, just the huge bang at the moment of impact. Coach H, which belonged to the Great Western train, bore the worst impact, turning into a fireball.

Coach H was located directly behind the train's locomotive. Three men standing at the front of this carriage when they were propelled into the back of the locomotive and two men sitting in front window seats were thrown out and killed. A sixth passenger, a woman, hit her head, suffering suspected fatal injuries and remained inside the carriage after it caught fire.

Barrister Greg had been helped down from another carriage and he described the scene on the tracks as the emergency services arrived. "A woman was breathing through an oxygen mask," he said. "An elderly white-haired man was placed carefully on a blanket by some paramedics.

"Another woman had burns to her back, which were being bathed. I shall never forget the smell in that school: a mixture of oil, diesel and burned flesh."

Majella Lyons, a passenger on the Thames Train, was trapped for five hours after the crash and realised a man whose legs she could see above her was dead. Giving evidence at the public inquiry into the disaster, she said: "It was such a heavy force on impact there was a rush of hot fluid from the person on top of me, I presumed blood.

"I was covered in blood and glass, so I thought I had smashed the back of my head in. In the pocket I was in it was pitch black. I couldn't see anything. It filled with black smoke. I was covered in liquid so I just thought we were all going to combust."

A fire crew and medics managed to reach the Australian, cutting a small hole in the side of the coach so they could hand her an oxygen mask and a drip. Emergency workers held Majella's hand for up to five hours as they worked to free her and she was later treated for a broken hand. Six weeks on, she learned her pelvis was broken too. Majella was one of 417 people injured in the collision.

Train drivers Michael Hodder, 31 and Brian Cooper, 52, were among those who lost their lives in the tragedy. Hodder, who was driving the train that passed the red signal at the point at which it should have stopped, had qualified as a train driver two weeks before the crash.

The ex-Navy man was just three and a half minutes into his driving shift when he was killed. The signal he passed, SN109, had been installed a few years before and was notorious for having been a "Signal Passed at Danger", known as "spadding" in driver lingo, on more than one occasion.

A public inquiry into the crash was held in 2000 by Lord Cullen, finding Hodder's driver training to be defective at two points: assessing situation-handling skills, and being notified of recent local incidents of Signals Passed at Danger. It criticised the poor signal placement and poor visibility caused by the light, suggesting the driver could have failed to spot the red signal.

The inquiry found an operational automatic train protection system, known as ATP, could have prevented both the Paddington and Southall rail crashes but had previously been rejected on cost grounds. Signaller training was also criticised - a Slough controller had tried to prevent the collision - as was The Railway Inspectorate, which could have done more.

Post crash, Thames Trains' removal of in-carriage emergency hammers was found have compromised safety and there was no organised evacuation of passengers.

Lord Cullen's 89 recommendations included better training and management of drivers and a revision of signal sighting.