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Dear All
Hello
Families and friends bereaved by the Paddington train crash marked the 15th anniversary of the disaster with a service.
They have placed flowers at a memorial site high above the railway line at Ladbroke Grove in west London.
On 5 October 1999, 31 people died when two trains collided almost head-on.
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The Thames driver, Michael Hodder, 31, and the other train driver, Brian Cooper, 52, were among those killed as the collision.
More than 220 people were injured.
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The subsequent inquiry found the Thames Trains service travelling from Paddington to Bedwyn in Wiltshire had gone through a red signal.
It then crashed into the London-bound high-speed First Great Western train
which had left Cheltenham Spa in Gloucestershire at 06:03.
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Paddington Survivors group chairman Jonathan Duckworth, 56,
from Stroud in Gloucestershire, was on the First Great Western train.
Father-of-two Mr Duckworth said:
"Luckily, I was only in hospital for around 24 hours but then I suffered
from post-traumatic stress disorder.
"I had to have about 18 months of treatment and was only able after that
to take on small, part-time jobs.
"It was six or seven years before I was able to work full-time again."
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There were further rail crashes at Hatfield in Hertfordshire in 2000,
at Selby in North Yorkshire in 2001 and at Potters Bar in Hertfordshire in 2002.
In all three accidents, there were people killed and many injured. .
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Michael Roberts, director-general of the Rail Delivery Group, which speaks on behalf of Network Rail and the train operators, said:
"After serious accidents in the early 2000s, changes such as an overhaul
of employee training for those doing safety-critical jobs and
a better approach to staff working hours have helped improve safety
on Britain's railway."
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Sincere wishes
Elizabeth,
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