British Mourn Train Wreck Victims at Outdoor Service

Thousands of people sang hymns and prayed in a supermarket parking lot in west London on Sunday, remembering 40 people killed nearby when two passenger trains collided.

Worshipers at churches across the country said special prayers, while forensic experts sifted through the charred remains of one car of the Great Western express train that collided with another train Tuesday, two miles west of London’s Paddington Station.

The rush-hour collision was Britain’s deadliest in a quarter-century.

A preliminary report released Friday indicated that the second train, owned by Thames Trains, passed through a red signal light before colliding with the Great Western train. On Sunday, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott said a train warning system that automatically prevents trains from going through red lights will be installed on all high-speed lines.

The Metropolitan Police’s deputy assistant commissioner, Andy Trotter, said that the death toll was not likely to rise.

“As we started to look at the falling missing person numbers and receiving calls from those who escaped . . . we started to think that hopefully more and more people were alive,” he said. “This hope now seems to be reality.”

At the open-air service next to the crash site, a crowd that included relatives of victims gathered under gloomy skies. Many held on to each other and cried.

Survivor Chris Machin, who escaped from the Paddington Station-bound Great Western train with only minor injuries, held a single sunflower and kept his head bowed.

“I cannot believe how sad I feel today,” said the 44-year-old engineer. “While I did not lose a loved one, I feel a strange sense of grief. I just needed to come today.”

Ambulance workers and police officers stood in the crowd, watching the proceedings in silence.

“I felt I had to be here,” said Julian Evans, a member of a police search unit. “I would say it has been one of the worst sites that I have had to work on.”