A HERD of cows hit by a train could have trampled down a trackside fence because they were spooked, investigators said last night.

Two hundred passengers were on the CrossCountry service between Oxford and Banbury when it hit the animals near Tackley.

Passengers had to wait for six hours on the train – the 2.45pm from Bournemouth to Manchester – until engineers checked it was still safe to run after the high-speed collision at 4.50pm on Wednesday.

Buses replaced trains between Oxford and Banbury for most of the evening.

A Network Rail spokesman said yesterday there would be no formal investigation of the incident.

He said: “The farmer believes the cows were spooked by the fact that their field was flooded.

“If a herd of cattle decides it wants to trample through a fence, there’s not much we can do about it.”

He added that recent scheduled inspections of the fence had all been carried out as planned.

He could not confirm how many cows had died in the incident.

l Yesterday trains on the line suffered further delays when a tree fell on the tracks just south of Lower Heyford at about 8.50am. It was removed at 10am.