logo
BREAKING NEWS Train smashes into tractor on level crossing leaving six people hurt

BREAKING NEWS Train smashes into tractor on level crossing leaving six people hurt

Daily Mail​22-05-2025

A train has collided with a tractor on a level crossing, leaving multiple people injured.
Emergency services including ambulances and the air ambulance were scrambled to the scene near Leominster, Herefordshire, shortly after 10:45am.
At least six people have been hurt in the incident at Nordan Farm on board the Manchester to Cardiff service.
Fortunately the train was not derailed. The condition of the tractor driver is unknown.
Rail services between Hereford and Craven Arms have been suspended after the 8:30 train from Manchester Piccadilly struck the vehicle on the crossing between Ludlow and Leominster.
National Rail has said all lines are blocked in the area and services between Hereford and Craven Arms are expected to be cancelled or altered until at least 7pm.
West Mercia Police, British Transport Police, West Midlands Ambulance Service, the Air Ambulance and Hereford & Worcester Fire and Rescue Service have all attended the incident.
Fire engines from seven different stations rushed to the scene.
A spokesperson for Hereford & Worcester Fire and Rescue Service said: 'Hereford & Worcester Fire and Rescue Service crews from Hereford, Malvern, Redditch, Wyre Forest, Leintwardine, Tenbury Wells and Leominster Fire Stations were called at 10:52 on 22 May to an incident with a train, consisting of five carriages and carrying 66 people in collision with an agricultural trailer unit near Orleton.
'Six people have been handed over to the care of the ambulance service (log 1314) with minor injuries.
'Police are also in attendance, as are Network Rail.
'There is no fire and the train was not derailed but there will be some disruption to the line.'
A spokesperson for National Rail said: 'A train hitting an obstruction on the line between Hereford and Craven Arms means that all lines are blocked.'

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Council's pigeon-proofing measures at Lincoln bus station
Council's pigeon-proofing measures at Lincoln bus station

BBC News

time31 minutes ago

  • BBC News

Council's pigeon-proofing measures at Lincoln bus station

A council has taken steps to stop pigeons from nesting and creating mess at a bus station in Lincoln. The City of Lincoln Council has installed a series of pigeon deterrents and will increase the number of bins at Lincoln Central Bus birds' presence had caused hygiene concerns and had impacted the overall experience for bus users, a spokesperson for the authority Joshua Wells said: "Regular bus users have previously raised their concerns and now, thanks to the new measures, the building is proving to be a more appealing space." A net and rounded spikes were installed in the open-plan station to stop pigeons from accessing certain areas and nesting on the ledges and beams. Wells added that more bins will be put in place and encouraged station users to dispose of waste effectively to "help keep the area clean and discourage the pigeons from returning".A council spokesperson said the measures were chosen as they "effectively discourage pigeons from roosting or nesting without causing them harm".They added that the deterrents have already seen a "significant reduction" in the number of pigeons in the council said they will continue to monitor the effectiveness of the deterrents. Listen to highlights from Lincolnshire on BBC Sounds, watch the latest episode of Look North or tell us about a story you think we should be covering here.

The astonishing stories of five air crash sole survivors
The astonishing stories of five air crash sole survivors

Telegraph

timean hour ago

  • Telegraph

The astonishing stories of five air crash sole survivors

A British national has been named as the only survivor of the Air India disaster in Ahmedabad. Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, 40, from London, was returning to the UK after visiting family with his brother, who was also on the flight in a different row. Remarkable footage taken shortly after the crash shows a bloodied Ramesh walking through a crowd. 'When I got up, there were bodies all around me. I was scared. I stood up and ran. There were pieces of the plane all around me,' he told the Hindustan Times from hospital. Throughout history, there have been at least 100 examples of sole survivors emerging from the wreckage of air disasters, covering military, cargo and commercial aircraft. The first example was on March 17, 1929, when Lou Foote, the 34-year-old pilot of a sightseeing plane, survived a crash in Newark, New Jersey. What is notable is the young age of many of these survivors. Of the 77 whose ages are known, the average age is 24 and the oldest is 52. The youngest, a Thai national who survived a Vietnam Airlines crash in 2003, was just 14 months old. Given the inevitably high death tolls, each story of a sole survivor is both remarkable and tragic, particularly when there is a child involved. The following five are among the best-known case studies in aviation history. On Christmas Eve 1971, Juliane Koepcke boarded a domestic flight in Peru with her mother, Maria. They did so against the advice of Koepcke's father, Hans-Wilhelm, who warned of LANSA's poor safety record. The plane was struck by lightning in mid-flight and the plane rapidly began to fall apart, before losing altitude. Kopecke recalls the experience of falling, while still strapped into her row of seats, for 10,000ft (3,000m) into the thick of the Amazon rainforest. Miraculously, Juliane Koepcke survived the fall with an eye injury, a cut on her right arm, a broken collarbone and concussion. There are various theories as to how she survived the fall, but it is thought that the updraught of the thunderstorm, the dense canopy of the forest and the fact she was attached to a row of three seats – acting as a kind of crude parachute – could have contributed. She spent 11 days following a creek within the jungle, during which she suffered a botfly larvae infestation in her wounded arm. On the ninth day, she came across a lumberjack encampment where she was offered rudimentary medical assistance (gasoline was poured on her arm) and put on an 11-hour canoe to the nearest inhabited area, where she was airlifted to hospital. Her mother did not survive the accident. Koepcke, now 70, went on to become an expert in mammalogy, specialising in bats. Today she works as a librarian at the Bavarian State Collection of Zoology in Munich. Vesna Vulović is believed to be the person to have survived the highest fall without a parachute, at an altitude of 6.31 miles (33,333ft). When a briefcase bomb exploded on the JAT flight, at this point at cruising altitude, the plane broke apart over a remote Czechoslovakian village. It is believed that Vulović survived because while all of the other passengers and flight crew were blown out of the aircraft, Vulović was unwittingly pinned inside the fuselage by a food trolley. Because the fuselage landed in a thickly wooded, snow-covered mountainside, it is thought that the impact was softened. The fact that Vulović had a history of low blood pressure, causing her to pass out as the cabin depressurised, could have also helped her to survive the fall. After the crash, Vulović suffered a fractured skull, cerebral haemorrhage, two broken legs and three broken vertebrae, as well as a fractured pelvis and several broken ribs. Within a year of the accident she had regained the ability to walk, although she suffered from a limp for the rest of her life. In a later interview with the New York Times, she was asked why she thought she survived the accident. 'Serbian stubbornness,' she said. 'And a childhood diet of chocolate, spinach and fish oil.' The deadliest accident to date with a sole survivor (a record which may be revised once the final death toll of the Air India disaster is confirmed) occurred shortly after take-off in Detroit. Then aged just four, Cecelia Cichan was travelling home to Tempe, Arizona alongside her mother, father and six-year-old brother. While searching the wreckage, firemen found Cichan still strapped into her seat, having sustained third degree burns and fractures to her skull, collarbone and left leg. As the subject of intense media interest, Cichan received more than $150,000 in donations that was put into a trust. In an interview with the Daily Mirror in 2012, she said: 'I never go on a day without thinking about the people on Flight 255,' she said. 'It's kind of hard not to think about it. When I look in the mirror, I have visual scars'. She had an aeroplane tattooed onto her wrist, as a daily reminder of the tragedy that she survived. The Yemenia Airbus A310-324 had been in service for 19 years, accumulating 53,000 flight hours when it crashed off the north coast of Grande Comore, Comoros, an island nation in the Indian Ocean. Later investigations found that, amid strong winds, the airline stalled and crashed into the sea. Since the Comoros had no sea-rescue capacity, French military aircraft and a boat from neighbouring islands Réunion and Mayotte were sent to conduct a formal search effort. The plane wreckage was found off the coastal town of Mitsamiouli, and among the bodies was 12-year-old Bahia Bakari, who was seen holding onto a piece of debris in the water. It later emerged she had been clinging onto it for 13 hours. With the help of local fishermen, Bakari was rescued and taken to a hospital in Paris with a fractured collarbone, hypothermia and cuts to her face. In the early morning on May 12, an Afriqiyah Airways Airbus A330-202 approached Tripoli Airport in Libya. The conditions were calm, with good visibility, and the crew was cleared to continue their approach. As the aircraft approached the runway, however, the crew was alerted that the weather had deteriorated and that the airport was shrouded in mist. After one failed landing attempt, the aircraft crashed just beside the runway at a speed of 302mph. On board were passengers from several countries including the United Kingdom, France and the United States. The sole survivor was a nine-year-old Dutch boy named Ruben van Assouw, who had been on safari with his family (all of whom died in the accident). The child had multiple fractures in both legs, but no life threatening injuries. It is believed he survived because he was flung from the wreckage moments before it burst into flames. Van Assouw's survival story was partial inspiration for Ann Napolitano's coming-of-age novel, Dear Edward, about the sole survivor of a plane crash. The book was later adapted into a TV series.

Nick Ferrari: ‘I was a bit of an arse at school'
Nick Ferrari: ‘I was a bit of an arse at school'

Telegraph

time2 hours ago

  • Telegraph

Nick Ferrari: ‘I was a bit of an arse at school'

School Days is a regular series by author Danny Danziger in which acclaimed British names and faces share the childhood stories that shaped them. This week, LBC radio presenter and broadcaster Nick Ferrari, 66, talks about learning the ropes early on at his father's press agency and playing the class joker. My father, Lino, arrived in this country from Switzerland at the age of four. He met and fell in love with my mum, Joyce, a police officer from Barrow-in-Furness who was the original Northern Rock. They produced three boys, Lino, Simone and Nicolo, which is what I was christened. I was the youngest, and there was quite a gap in age: my brothers were 11 and nine years older than me. Dad ran a press agency, and at a very young age I would be answering phones to news desks, which probably toughened me up a bit. Christiaan Barnard, the pioneering heart surgeon, was taking a heart from someone who had lived in our patch, and I took control of that story. But I also remember another one: a bus driver had driven into a collection of schoolchildren, and I went down there and saw all these school caps lying about on the side of the road. A load of kids had lost their lives. Education was always very key in my family. My middle brother, Simone, had been to Eltham College and absolutely loved it, and done very well there. I'd passed the 11-plus, so I could have gone to a grammar school, but my parents wanted to send me there. Eltham is a high-achieving school – I don't know if I'd ever get in now! I'd been there to visit my brother, so I was prepared for it, but it was still daunting. It had very strict discipline. Eltham had been set up as a school for the sons of missionaries and its most famous old boy was Eric Liddell, who was the subject of the film Chariots of Fire. There was a strong religious streak, with chapel every morning. The nibbos (new boys) went into chapel first and there was absolute respect and deference accorded to the older boys as they filed in. The prefects would proceed in last and sit in special seats at the back wearing gowns while the rest of us were in pews. The thing I loved about Eltham is it was a really good mix of kids. Of course, in a fee-paying school there are parents who are exceptionally wealthy, and some of my peers would arrive in the latest Volvo estate and have these amazing foreign trips during the holidays. My dad did well but he didn't have that kind of wealth: we were more middle or upper middle with our income bracket. I started as a clear A-student. I loved history and was good at it. Mr Chambers was the teacher who made the light bulb go on and it was just a joy to sit in his class. He wore his glasses down on the end of his nose, and looked like a wise old owl. I still use things he taught me today on the radio. Also, I led my house to win the debating society prize. The motion was: This House Believes the Monarchy Should Be Abolished, and I had to argue in favour of that, which was not my view at all because I think the monarchy is fantastic. I must have made a very cohesive argument. Sports were important to me. Eltham was a rugby school, there were a lot of playing fields, and I really enjoyed the game and was the right build for it. I ended up a very solid second- or third-XV player. The only reason that I started acting was because they did a production one year of a play called The Italian Straw Hat with the local girls' school, Farringtons in Chislehurst, and suddenly all these girls arrived. I realised the only way to talk to them was to join the drama club, but all the main roles had been filled, and I was made an extra with just two lines. I was desperately in love with the leading lady but I didn't get anywhere. I was popular within the school, had a good circle of mates, and was known throughout as Enzo, after Enzo Anselmo Giuseppe Ferrari, the founder of the Ferrari marque. Fatty came in there too, sometimes. After a couple of years, my attention in lessons began to wander: I was always looking out of the window, and was easily misled. I think my parents felt a degree of disappointment about that. The thing is I just wanted to entertain people, and entertaining people was so much more fun than studying, and I was good at it. Put me in a classroom and I'm going to try to be the entertainment, larking about, trying to impersonate the teachers, just basically being a bit of an arse. I was hopeless at anything to do with numbers. There was a maths teacher called Mr Seddon, and every lesson, I would call out, 'Sir, sir, I don't understand this equation' – it was almost like pantomime, and the class would all laugh, 'Good old Enzo, getting it wrong again.' But I had a very good relationship with Mr Seddon, and he gave me some decent reports which I probably didn't warrant. Any science I was also terrible at, and that was a shame because I had wanted to be a vet. We lived in a little village in Kent and had a bit of land on which my dad kept a few lambs, donkeys and chickens, and I absolutely loved being around animals. The minute I got home, I would be driving a bale of hay across the fields in a pick-up truck feeding various hungry donkeys. I've also delivered a foal, and can shear a sheep. I'm probably the only breakfast presenter who can shear a sheep now that John Humphrys has retired. I was sad to leave school as it had been part of my life for seven years. But I was ready to leave. I toyed with the idea of university, but then I got a job on a local paper in Woolwich, and off I went. Quite honestly I loved having cash in my pocket. A couple of years ago, I went back to Eltham to give a careers talk. I hardly recognised the place. The quad I used to walk around is all classrooms now, they have built out and back and on top and across. I couldn't believe how vast it is now, it's like the Tardis. When I picture myself from those days, I'm walking through the quad with a collection of my mates around me, Anthony, Chris, the other Chris, Mark and Mike, and I'm eating a bag of those sherbet flying saucer sweets which I'd just bought from the tuck shop, I've managed to scrape through some exam, and we're all having a great laugh and are in a good place. My feelings for the school while I was there were ones of enormous affection, and I realise those feelings haven't changed, all these years later.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store