Selby train crash: The day in quotes

"While the operator was speaking to him we heard him shout: 'The train's coming', and then there was a bang." Police tell of a motorist's emergency phone call

"It's like a scene from a bomb explosion. The carnage is appalling. You can hear mobile phones going off deep inside the mangled wreckage. " Ambulance spokesman Nigel Metcalfe

REFERENCE Selby Train Crash   •  Collision map   •  Motorist's 999 call   •  'Like a bomb'   •  Emergency response   •  The day in quotes   •  Official reaction   •  Blow to UK railroads   •  Rail company statement   •  UK rail crash timeline

"I heard screaming and shouting and the lights went out. I held onto the table in front on me and then there was a huge impact." Passenger Janine Edwards

"We were woken up by a horrible, weird crunching minutes before 6:15 a.m. All I could see was a mass of piled up carriages lying just outside the village." Resident David Chandler

"It's been a ghastly six months, with Hatfield and this. It just is terrible." Christopher Garnett, chief executive of train operator GNER

"This is a quite horrendous accident which has shaken the whole country." UK Prime Minister Tony Blair

"If a vehicle as comparatively small a Land Rover managed to plunge through a barrier, it does suggest that barriers are not strong enough." Nigel Harris, Rail Magazine

"This is a particularly shocking tragedy coming on top of so much anxiety and loss from the foot-and-mouth outbreak and, before that, the recent floods." The Queen

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