From ageing infrastructure to a surge in assaults – how safe are our trains really?

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Stations feel dangerous, infrastructure is getting old, staff have been cut and the debate around female-only carriages is back. As the nation reels from the Huntingdon attack on Saturday night and a derailment on Monday, Helen Coffey looks into the risk of rail travel in modern Britain today

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ome thought it was a Halloween prank at first. When bloodied, terrified passengers ran down the carriages on board the LNER service from Doncaster to London on Saturday night, warning of a man attacking fellow travellers with a knife, it sounded like a tasteless joke. But the horror was all too real. Shortly after the train left Peterborough at 7.30pm, the rampage began, with the suspect, now named as 32-year-old Anthony Williams, accused of indiscriminately stabbing all those in his path. It is one of Britain’s largest mass stabbings, with 11 people injured and one member of LNER rail staff in a critical condition.