'I survived the Paddington crash'

Richard Castle was badly burned in the crash

Survivors from Gloucestershire have been recalling the events of the Paddington rail disaster on the 10th anniversary of the tragedy.

Thirty-one people died, including four from Gloucestershire, when a Thames commuter train and Great Western express crashed at Ladbroke Grove outside London on 5 October 1999.

One of the survivors, Richard Castle from Lightpill near Stroud, suffered 23 percent burns to his body. He was in carriage eight which was the one at the front that caught fire.

He told BBC Radio Gloucestershire he still has very vivid memories of the crash:

"Even ten years on I can remember it almost frame by frame. I was travelling into London about 2 minutes out," he said.

Fireball

"Normally you start to get your briefcase down and all that sort of stuff. That morning there was a hell of a loud bang. The carriage turned over, it came to a halt and the fireball came through.

"It was to say the least a very interesting morning."

Another survivor, Jonathan Duckworth from Nailsworth said: "I can remember the day, the morning and the crash itself very clearly, it's engrained on my memory.

Jonathan Duckworth says he remembers every detail of the crash

"I remember what the morning was like, it was quite a crisp, clear morning. I remember the sun coming up over the fields and burning the mist away from the fields. I've got very, very strong memories of the day."

Post-traumatic stress

Mr Duckworth escaped any serious physical injury but later suffered from Post-traumatic Stress Disorder.

"Initially I didn't thing it had affected me very much. I went back to work after a little while, I went back to going on trains but it was probably some 18 months after the crash that I discovered that I had post traumatic symptoms and actually had to give up work and get treatment for them."

Now he says he's very much better. "There's no doubt that time does heal and also the treatment I had helped very much in getting back to normal.

"I'm quite a different person than how I was before the crash. There's no doubt that the last four or five years have been very much easier than the first four or five after the crash "

Safer

Ten years on from the Paddington rail crash, Mr Duckworth thinks the UK's railways are now a lot safer.

"I think an awful lot was done, maybe not immediately afterwards, but after the public enquiry came out there were a lot of recommendations, over 150, and almost all of those have been put in place.

"The one or two that haven't there are good reasons, mainly financial reasons, why they haven't been put in place, and all that has led to a railway network that is more safety conscious that it was ten years ago"