The high speed train was brought to a halt at Huntingdon on Saturday night (Chris Radburn/PA) (Image: PA Wire/PA Images)
When passengers boarded the busy 6.25pm train from Doncaster to King’s Cross, many were eager to arrive into London less than two hours later – but the train would never make it that far.
The LNER journey was going as planned when, just after departing Peterborough station at 7.30pm on Saturday, a mass stabbing attack began to unfold.
The usual buzz of a Saturday night train became louder and more disorienting for Olly Foster, who told the BBC that when he first heard people shouting “run, run, there’s a guy literally stabbing everyone” he thought it might have been a cruel Halloween prank.
He did not yet know it, but 10 people would be taken to hospital in what would become one of the biggest mass stabbings in Britain.
Passengers were seen hiding in train toilets to escape the rampage, The Times reported, after a man with a large knife made his way through a carriage.
A forensic investigator on the platform by the train at Huntingdon train station (Joe Giddens/PA) (Image: PA Wire/PA Images)
There was “blood everywhere”, a witness told the newspaper, and growing distress as people tried to flee to safety.
An emergency alarm was pulled and the train driver brought the Class 800 Azuma to a halt in the quiet Cambridgeshire town of Huntingdon.
For Mr Foster, who told BBC News the incident “felt like forever”, the chaos was unfolding eerily slowly.
At first he did not notice the blood on the red seat moquette fabric, but as people began to panic he found his hand was “covered in blood”.
There was “blood all over the chair” he had leaned on.
(PA Graphics) (Image: PA Graphics/Press Association Images)
One of the victims is thought to be an older man, who Mr Foster said he saw deliberately getting in an attacker’s way to shield a younger girl from the knife, sustaining injuries to his head and neck as he did so.
A passenger, who gave his name as Gavin, told Sky News he saw an “extremely bloodied” victim who collapsed on the carriage floor.
Two of the victims are still fighting for their lives in hospital.
By 7.39pm, Cambridgeshire Constabulary police had been called, with British Transport Police (BTP) on its way by 7.42pm.
Within eight minutes of the call to BTP, two suspects had been apprehended by armed officers.
Sirens wailed through the November night with ambulance crews and firefighters also called to the scene – Ben Obese-Jecty, the MP for Huntingdon, said he had “never seen as big a response” to an incident.
Armed police were seen running down the platform at the station, trying to safely evacuate passengers and neutralise any ongoing threat.
One suspect is believed to have been shot with a Taser by police after the bloody rampage.
“Essentially, as they got closer to him, started shouting, like, ‘get down get down’,” a passenger told Sky News.
“He then was waving a knife, quite a large knife, and then they detained him.
Two people have been arrested in connection with the incident (Chris Radburn/PA) (Image: PA Wire/PA Images)
“I think it was a Taser that got him down in the end.”
Forensic officers in white coveralls were seen taking photographs of the scene on Saturday night, where the two men were arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.
The train still sits stationary at Huntingdon on Sunday morning, as the suspects – a 32-year-old black British national and a 35-year-old British national of Caribbean descent – are questioned in separate police stations.
Emergency services at the scene are trying to piece together what exactly happened.