Train crash Wales: Man dies, 15 in hospital, after collision

Anthony Hurford, a passenger on the Shrewsbury-bound train, said he felt “pretty shellshocked” by the incident.

“The word that keeps coming to my head is just brutal really.

“Just going from, I don’t know how fast we were going, maybe 40, 50, 60 miles an hour, to nothing in the blink of an eye,” he told BBC Breakfast.

“Somehow my body bent the leg of a table and ripped it off its bolts attached to the wall.

“Suddenly I was on the floor with my laptop strewn ahead of me, wondering what the hell had happened,” he said.

“We tried to stop at the lights. At the top of the hill there’s a signal that I guess would have been a passing place and for whatever reason the train wouldn’t stop.

“There must have been 30/40 people from fire [service]. There was British Transport Police who had come from Birmingham, there were three helicopters, people had come from north and south Wales as far as I’m aware. I was checked by three or four different medics,” he added.