‘The Ladbroke Grove rail crash changed my life 25 years ago – in more ways than one’

Tony Jasper missed his train on October 5, 1999. 

Having recently divorced, the then 47-year-old IT consultant was commuting into London from a house he’d bought in Oxfordshire.

His usual 7:10am train from Didcot Parkway was running late. A huge crowd of impatient commuters swarmed forward when it finally appeared. Tony decided to wait up for the next service – the 7:20am – so he would be able to find a seat.

At the same time, 48-year-old divorcee Jan Vaughn waited at Thatcham station, about 40 miles west of London. 

She was working as an assistant benefit consultant in the city, but had also missed her train after a heavily-frosted car windscreen delayed her drive.

Jan, in coach C, and Tony, in coach E, were among 420 people on the First Great Western service bound for London Paddington. What happened on that fateful commute would leave everlasting mental and physical scars for those on board.

Speaking about the tragedy on an episode of Rescue, a podcast hosted by survival expert Donny Dust, Tony recalls: ‘There was a sudden bang. Then there was a second bang.

‘The third bang was accompanied with a massive orange ball of flame. And then that’s when I knew that we were seriously in trouble. 

‘A fireball rolled past my window and then came the smoke. My thought at that time was “I’m going to get crushed. I’m gonna get burnt, or I’m gonna choke to death”. 

‘It was probably about the fifth bang where the carriage was thrown up in the air.’

In coach C, Jan had briefly lost consciousness after hearing loud ‘screeching’.

She had no idea if a bomb, train fault or collision had caused the explosion. Around her, panicked passengers battled in vain to open carriage doors as a worrying smell of diesel got stronger.

Tony, meanwhile, went into ‘rescue mode’. He smashed open a window by hitting the corner of the glass, a trick he had learned during workplace training during the era of IRA bomb threats.

‘I started to climb out the window,’ he explains on the podcast.

‘My overriding passion then was to get as many people out as possible because they did not deserve to be in there. I shouted instructions for people to come out, feet first, tummy down.

‘These were cuts on my hands from the glass, which had been in people’s clothing and in their footwear. When one person came out, they would shoot off and another would follow. People just kept coming. I stayed there and I guided every one of them down.’

Some passengers fled the train but others were unable to move far due to their horrific burns and injuries. One man shuffled through the crash site with his ‘skin hanging off his hands like a spider’s webs.’

‘It looked like a horror movie,’ remembers Jan, who also speaks to Donny on the podcast. 

‘There were bodies, there were people just sitting on the track side completely dazed, a lot of people were badly burned. There was a sort of silence, just this sort of disbelief on what had happened.’ 

News of the Paddington rail crash – also known as the Ladbroke Grove tragedy – trickled out to the public via radio broadcasts. The collision took place shortly after 8am, when people were driving to work, taking children to school, or at home starting their day. Widespread panic followed as families tried to trace loved ones who commuted to the capital.

Casualties congregated at a Sainsbury’s in Ladbroke Grove while emergency services raced to the scene.

Jan was one of the survivors who made it to the supermarket.

She recalls: ‘We’d gone through this major crash, which our brains were still trying to process, and then we came into a scenario where people were pushing trolleys around us and loading stuff into their cars. It was an unreal situation.’

Around Jan, Sainsburys staff soon jumped into action. Workers trained in first aid tended to the injured while others raced to get water, towels, blankets and chairs.

Construction workers in the car park tore ladders from their vans and carried them down to the upturned train carriages. They also helped firefighters cut holes in fences to make access to the train easier.

At the crash site, after having helped around 65 people, Tony was physically exhausted.

Covered in diesel, he stumbled away from the tracks in the knowledge he wasn’t in the right state to save any more people. Tony describes the scene as a ‘strange picnic’ as he remembers walking past pieces of clothing and bags scattered over the ground. As he left, he heard the sound of phone ringtones from within the carriages behind him. Countless phone calls that would never be answered.

Tony reached Sainsbury’s and – after using the supermarket toilets to clean his hands – simply got a taxi home. Meanwhile, Jan was picked up by her distraught parents.

‘I don’t remember much about those first few days’ she says. 

‘It was just all a bit of a blur – there was a need to see what had actually happened, the impact, of the crash. But when you see aerial footage, it’s massively confronting. And, I had to give up watching the news after a while because it was actually too upsetting. 

‘You just didn’t want to see it anymore.’

The survivors would soon find out that two trains had been involved in the crash. A Thames Turbo train had left Paddington bound for Great Bedwyn in Wiltshire, driven by the recently qualified Michael Hodder. It collided with Jan and Tony’s First Great Western train at a combined speed of 130mph.

In the weeks and months that followed, survivors struggled with symptoms of PTSD. At the time, the condition was associated with veterans and not more widely associated with trauma as it is today.

Tony recalls: ‘I was once in a meeting with our small sales team that consisted of me, a salesman and a marketing director. The salesman said to me in the middle of the meeting, “You don’t seem to be paying attention, Tony.”

‘That was the first time I had this horrible shock that I was out of my depth. WhatI didn’t know was that I was sliding down the slippery slope of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. 

‘I had no knowledge of PTSD. I wasn’t expecting it and had never researched it. The idea of being mentally ill after the crash just hadn’t dawned on me.’

Tony was signed off work and put on antidepressants, but as he battled with feelings of survivor’s guilt, he couldn’t return to normal.

He joined the Paddington Survivors Group and when a public inquiry into the crash opened at London’s Methodist Hall in July 2000, Tony was among a small delegation who decided to attend. 

The group was spearheaded by Pam Warren, who had been sitting in first class on that fateful Paddington-bound train, going over notes ahead of a training course in London.

She had been left clambering through a broken window to escape with ‘smoke rising off her whole body.’ Pam had been in a coma for three weeks and wore a surgical mask for 23 hours a day while her burns healed.

She led the Paddington Survivors Group to pursue compensation for the horror they had faced.

A minibus into London had been organised for those left too scared to travel via train to the inquiry. That’s where Tony first met fellow survivor Jan Vaughan.

An investigation into the incident which nearly caused their deaths was a strange backdrop to their blossoming romance, but, nevertheless, their bond grew.

During a break in proceedings, they looked round Methodist Hall together and later the pair enjoyed ice creams by the Thames during their lunch.  

The following week they decided to meet up to chat ‘rail safety’, but deep down they both knew there was more to it than that – they were falling for each other.

After the three-month hearing ended, Jan and Tony continued seeing each other. Both struggled with PTSD and mentally low days, but supported each other through them as their relationship grew more and more serious.

‘He was a sympathetic ear,’ Jan remembers.

‘He asked my father for my hand in marriage. My father was quite shocked considering I wasn’t a young person. I can’t remember his exact words but he replied to Tony with something like “why not.”’

The official enquiry into the crash was completed in 2000. In conclusion, Lord William Cullen found that a poorly placed signal light near Paddington station likely caused the tragedy. It had been partially obscured and, with bright sunlight shining on it at a low angle, it is thought that Thames Turbo driver Michael Hodder couldn’t spot the red light.

Of the 570 people involved in the Paddington rail crash, 31 people died. 

In 2001, Tony and 46 others were presented with certificates of commendation for the ‘outstanding courage and skill’ they displayed on the day of the crash. It is thought an additional 19 deaths were avoided thanks to the brave efforts of passengers and first-responders.

Jan and Tony married on Valentine’s Day in 2004 and later moved out to Tasmania in Australia, where they live happily today. They recently celebrated their 19th wedding anniversary.

‘We don’t, generally discuss the crash’ Jan tells the podcast.

While Tony adds: ‘Sometimes I might go back and think, what did I do there? Did I do the right thing? How could I have done it better? But, I don’t get the intrusive thoughts that I had when we were suffering from PTSD.

‘Dwelling on the past is fine if you’re trying to learn from something, but otherwise, the crash is not in my daily thoughts. 

‘I like to enjoy the present and look forward to the future.’

Listen to Jan and Tony’s story in full here. To find out about the Paddington Survivors Group, visit here.

This story was originally published in Metro.co.uk in November, 2023.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Kirsten.Robertson@metro.co.uk 

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