A person has died after being struck by a steam train as it travelled towards central London ahead of a planned tour through Kent.<\/p>\n
The Armistice Steam Express was due to travel through the county today to mark Remembrance Day.<\/p>\n
The Armistice Steam Express was due to head through Kent to mark Remembrance Day. Picture: Simon Troy<\/p>\n
However, the locomotive, which was heading to Victoria station, struck a person at Hanwell station in west London at about 6am.<\/p>\n
The incident led to the cancellation of the steam tour, which was due to travel to Canterbury before returning to the capital via Deal and Dover Priory, then inland through Tonbridge and Sevenoaks.<\/p>\n
Hanwell station is close to where the locomotive is stabled in Southall.<\/p>\n
Southern Locomotives Ltd, which operates the engine, confirmed the Kent tour had been cancelled following the incident.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are deeply saddened to confirm that a person has died after being struck by our locomotive 34028 Eddystone this morning at Hanwell station, west London,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur immediate thoughts and deepest sympathies are with the family and loved ones of the individual involved and the train crew who witnessed the tragedy.<\/p>\n
The incident sparked a large emergency response.<\/p>\n
The Railway Touring Company (RTC), which organised the Kent tour, said passengers had been offered alternative dates.<\/p>\n
The Armistice Steam Express on a previous visit to Kent. Picture: Jason Arthur<\/p>\n
Adult tickets for the trip cost \u00a3115.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe incident took place prior to the start of our tour and passengers were not involved,\u201d RTC said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur sincere apologies to our passengers for the disappointment this has caused.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe decision to cancel was not taken lightly. We have offered all passengers alternative steam dates.\u201d<\/p>\n
British Transport Police confirmed officers were called to Hanwell station, but said the person was pronounced dead at the scene.<\/p>\n
The incident is not being treated as suspicious and a file will be prepared for the coroner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A person has died after being struck by a steam train as it travelled towards central London ahead…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":831648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3859,84,980,3860,3861,2556,59,191,3864,3865,3866,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-831647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-ashford","tag-business","tag-canterbury","tag-deal","tag-dover","tag-folkestone","tag-gb","tag-kent","tag-sandwich","tag-sevenoaks","tag-tonbridge","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=831647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/831648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=831647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=831647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=831647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}