A woman has died following a fire in the toilet cubicle of a London Midland train.
The commuter train was travelling from Northampton to London when the fire broke out just after 5pm last night.
The train was pulling into Leighton Buzzard station in Bedfordshire when passengers saw smoke coming from the toilet and raised the alarm.
The woman, believed to be 43, is thought to have set herself on fire on board the train.
Nobody else was harmed in the incident and all passengers were evacuated from the train, closing the West Coast Main Line.
Many trains were cancelled from London’s Euston station and there was serious disruption to all services on the line as the overhead power lines had been switched off.
A spokesperson for British Transport Police said the incident was not being treated as an accident.
Services on the WCML were running again by 7pm but were facing significant delays.
The trains were not running again at 7pm. It was well after 8 o’clock that the first train to Manchester set off. It would be correct to say that services were displayed on the board at shortly after 7pm, but they were not setting off at this time. It was 8.45pm before I was able to get on a train to Manchester.