TERMINAL DECLINE

With the nation still reeling from the Huntingdon attack, passenger assaults on our crumbling network have tripled in recent years amid staff lay-offs

- Helen Coffey

Some 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.

Horrific though the incident was, the feedback seems to be unanimous: it was exceptionally well handled. Train driver Andrew Johnson, a Royal Navy and Iraq war veteran, made the swift decision to divert the train to Huntingdon. The courageous member of train staff who tried to intervene was "nothing short of heroic and undoubtedly saved people's lives", according to the British Transport Police. Within eight minutes of the first 999 call at 7.42pm, the alleged perpetrator had been arrested.

Emergency planning may have played a vital part in ensuring Saturday's response was quick off the mark. Police had rehearsed an eerily similar knife attack scenario on a moving train in March this year, reports Sky News. In the drill, the train stopped immediately between stations when the emergency cord was pulled; it took police 25 minutes to reach it. When the real attack took place, the decision to stop at a station enabled armed officers to get to the scene far faster.