The family of a train driver who tragically lost his life in the Bedford crash have spoken of their ‘devastation’.
Shaun Burton, 60, was named as the only fatality of the rail crash that injured around 100 passengers on board on Friday.
His family said: ‘We are devastated by his loss. Our thoughts are also with those affected by this incident.’
‘Our thoughts continue to be with them and his colleagues at East Midlands Railway.’
Network Rail said the train crash, which killed one and injured more than 100, was a ‘tragic, isolated incident’, but has warned of significant delays.
Rail services will be disrupted until June 28 while a ‘complex recovery operation’ to remove the damaged trains and carriages from the track continues.
Rail passengers have been warned to expect disruption to services to and from Bedford for another week, and were urged to only travel if it is ‘necessary’.
There will be no services north of Luton on the busy commuter Thameslink line, and no EMR services south of Bedford, with a limited rail replacement bus service in operation between Luton and Bedford, Network Rail said.
Investigators are looking into whether a faulty signal led to the deadly train collision in Bedford, in which a train driver was killed, and dozens of others were seriously injured when two passenger trains collided just after 5 pm on Friday.
Footage from the aftermath shows the incident involved two East Midlands Railway (EMR) services, with one smashing into the back of another, which had stopped on the same line.
One person died and around 100 people were injured, 11 ‘very seriously’ and 22 seriously, the East of England Ambulance Service said.
Investigators are now looking into the circumstances surrounding the crash. The driver of the stopped train from Nottingham had been reporting a fault to staff on the phone when the other train slammed into it.