Superintendent Kyle Gordon said he could not stress the seriousness of the incident enough. He is seen here at a happier moment, when he joined BTP in Scotland at the start of October.
BTP officers in Scotland are hunting two men who were seen running away from a crash site at Uphall in West Lothian on the afternoon of 14 October.
They’ve issued an appeal for witnesses who may have seen the two men, both in their late teens or twenties, making off after a stolen pick-up truck had rolled down an embankment on to the line, where it was struck by the 16.39 train from Edinburgh to Milngavie at an estimated 75mph (120km/h). The red Toyota Hilux was wrecked in the collision, but the train was not derailed. Reports spoke of only one injury on board, when a female passenger grazed her arm.