The LNER journey was going as planned when, just after departing Peterborough station at 7.30pm on Saturday, a mass stabbing attack began to unfold.
The usual buzz of a Saturday night train became louder and more disorienting for Olly Foster, who told the BBC that when he first heard people shouting “run, run, there’s a guy literally stabbing everyone” he thought it might have been a cruel Halloween prank.
He did not yet know it, but 10 people would be taken to hospital in what would become one of the biggest mass stabbings in Britain.
Passengers were seen hiding in train toilets to escape the rampage, The Times reported, after a man with a large knife made his way through a carriage.
There was “blood everywhere”, a witness told the newspaper, and growing distress as people tried to flee to safety.
Others tried to hide in the train’s buffet car, the BBC reported.
Alistair Day said he and others managed to get into it after seeing other passengers running towards them with blood on them.
He told the BBC he saw “a man at the window with his knife” trying to get in, but by then the buffet car was locked.
An emergency alarm was pulled and the train driver brought the Class 800 Azuma to a halt in the quiet Cambridgeshire town of Huntingdon.
For Mr Foster, who told BBC News the incident “felt like forever”, the chaos was unfolding eerily slowly.
At first he did not notice the blood on the red seat moquette fabric, but as people began to panic he found his hand was “covered in blood”.
There was “blood all over the chair” he had leaned on.
One of the victims is thought to be an older man, who Mr Foster said he saw deliberately getting in an attacker’s way to shield a younger girl from the knife, sustaining injuries to his head and neck as he did so.
A passenger, who gave his name as Gavin, told Sky News he saw an “extremely bloodied” victim who collapsed on the carriage floor.
Cassie Marriot tried to help people coming off the train, including a teenage girl who looked “petrified” after narrowly missing being attacked.
She told the BBC: “I met another young girl who was about 18 or 19. She told me she was listening to music on the train when a man tried to stab her. She said someone pulled her out of the way.”
“She looked absolutely petrified.”
Two of the victims are still fighting for their lives in hospital.
By 7.39pm, Cambridgeshire Constabulary police had been called, with British Transport Police (BTP) on its way by 7.42pm.
Within eight minutes of the call to BTP, two suspects had been apprehended by armed officers.
Sirens wailed through the November night with ambulance crews and firefighters also called to the scene – Ben Obese-Jecty, the MP for Huntingdon, said he had “never seen as big a response” to an incident.
A father on board with his children said everyone started to run and “pile off” the train when it came to a halt.
The man, who gave his name as Steve, told BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House programme he and his children fled to a nearby house.
“We ran out into the car park and ran up a hill and out onto a road and we bumped into two or three young girls, with my kids, and then we ran to someone’s house and hammered on all the doors and pressed the buzzers,” Steve said.
“We got let in and a very kind elderly couple looked after us until it was safe to leave.
“It was just unnerving not knowing what was happening. Knowing you were in a box and couldn’t get out of it if you wanted to.”
Armed police were seen running down the platform at the station, trying to safely evacuate passengers and neutralise any ongoing threat.
One suspect is believed to have been shot with a Taser by police after the bloody rampage.
“Essentially, as they got closer to him, started shouting, like, ‘get down get down’,” a passenger told Sky News.
“He then was waving a knife, quite a large knife, and then they detained him.
“I think it was a Taser that got him down in the end.”
Forensic officers in white coveralls were seen taking photographs of the scene on Saturday night, where the two men were arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.
The train still sits stationary at Huntingdon on Sunday morning, as the suspects – a 32-year-old black British national and a 35-year-old British national of Caribbean descent – are questioned in separate police stations.
Emergency services at the scene are trying to piece together what exactly happened.
