RAIL workers will tomorrow commemorate the 25th anniversary of one of Britain’s worst rail disasters.

On October 5, 1999, 31 people died and 258 were seriously injured when two passenger trains collided head-on at Ladbroke Grove two miles out of Paddington station in London.

A public inquiry into the disaster revealed flaws in the management and regulation of safety on Britain’s privatised rail network and concluded that the collision could have been avoided.

The dead included the two train drivers, Brian Cooper and Michael Hodder.

Mick Whelan, general secretary of train drivers’ union Aslef, will attend the memorial service.

“As an industry we will never forget those who lost their lives, and those who were injured, and all those families who were impacted and who suffered because of the Ladbroke Grove rail crash,” he said.

“And, as an industry, we should never forget the lessons that we learned in what is – and what will always be – a safety-critical industry.”