One killed in train crash in northwest England

LONDON, Feb 24 (Reuters) - One person was killed and eight seriously injured when a high-speed London-to-Glasgow train was derailed in northwest England late, rescue services said.

Firemen were for a time unable to reach many of the passengers trapped in train carriages because of live power lines on the track. But a spokesman for Virgin Trains said later all had been taken off the train.

A spokesman for Royal Lancaster Infirmary said: ''We have had five severe casualties admitted and I can confirm one death.'' A spokesman at the Royal Preston Hospital said 12 casualties had been admitted there. Three of those were critically injured.

Firemen searched through the overturned carriages with thermal imaging equipment late last night.

''You were suddenly aware of a jolt and the train started swaying really quite dramatically,'' BBC executive Caroline Thomson, a passenger, told BBC News 24 Television.

She said the train then flipped over and came to rest on its side.

''The emergency vehicles are coming up and there are a lot of flashing lights. One carriage is lying quite dramatically ...

off the line,'' she said from the scene, in farmland near the town of Kendal on the edge of the Lake District.

Royal Air Force Sea king helicopters ferried the injured to hospital. Twelve ambulances and 80 firefighters were rushed to the scene of the crash.

Police cordoned off the area and helped scores of ''walking wounded'', who first took refuge in local farms.

Investigators were trying to determine the cause of the crash. Media reports of a broken rail or a landslip could not be confirmed.

Virgin Trains is 49 percent-owned by British bus and train operator Stagecoach Group Plc and 51 percent by Richard Branson's Virgin Group.

REUTERS PDS RN0706