A retired Oxford doctor told today of his lucky escape from an Australian train crash thought to have killed 12 people, writes Andrew Ffrench.

Sixty-five people were also injured when a commuter train carrying 1,000 passengers ploughed into the back of transcontinental India-Pacific train carrying 159 passengers, outside Sydney.

The commuter train rounded a blind corner in the Blue Mountains and slammed into the back of the transcontinental train, state authorities said.

The force of the impact near Glenbrook, 35 miles west of Sydney, saw passengers, including several Britons, thrown against the walls of their carriages. Three carriages of the commuter train were derailed. Retired doctor John Currie, 66, who was on holiday with his wife Claire, was one of a number of British tourists aboard the India-Pacific train.

He said he was able to help some of the surviving passengers by taking their pulse and reassuring them.

He added: "There were a few people with cuts and bruises on the India-Pacific, but nothing like the commuter train."

Another British couple counting their blessings were Tony and Diana Judd from Knutsford, Cheshire.

"We were lucky our carriage didn't topple over," said Mr Judd, a retired engineer. The 1,000 commuters on the 6.39am from Lithgow, New South Wales, were mainly office workers and schoolchildren. Emergency service officials said the number of dead could have been greater had the two rear carriages of the India-Pacific train not been empty.

The injured were treated where they lay.

Others were ferried to a makeshift casualty station in the middle of a local cricket pitch. Some passengers were almost certainly saved when the driver of the commuter train ran through the lead carriage issuing a warning, after applying the emergency brakes.

The driver, who survived, shouted to people to "get down" and brace themselves for the impact.

Story date: Thursday 02 December

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