Forensic investigators walk on the platform at the train station after a mass stabbing on a London-bound train in Huntingdon, England, on November 2, 2025. Photo: VCG

Rail unions in the UK have called for more protection for staff and passengers after the mass stabbings attack on a London North Eastern Railway (LNER) train in Cambridgeshire that took place on Saturday evening local time, the Guardian reported on Sunday. The incident has cast a fresh spotlight on transport safety in the country after budget cuts affecting police number and rail staffing, per the report. 

Eddie Dempsey, general secretary of The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, commonly known as the RMT, said he would be "seeking urgent meetings with government, rail employers and police to ensure that we have the strongest possible support, resources and robust procedures in place."

The Guardian report said the LNER attacks on Saturday evening recall the killing of a passenger on a train in Guildford, Surrey, in 2019, which made headlines because of its randomness and rarity.

The report also revealed that the only one railway operator and station with the kind of airport security that might have located weapons used on the LNER train is Eurostar at London St Pancras. And the report also argued that even a scaled-down version in everyday rail travel would probably prove unworkable, causing more queueing and delay than most passengers would regard as tolerable, and requiring a far bigger investment in infrastructure and people than the cash-strapped rail industry and the Treasury would countenance.

According to data provided by the Guardian, the overall number of recorded assaults on the railways in the UK has risen in recent year: it rose another 7 percent to an annual high of 10,231 in figures released last week.

The Transport Salaried Staffs' Association (TSSA)'s general secretary, Maryam Eslamdoust, urged LNER and the government "to act swiftly to review security, to support the affected workers, and to ensure nothing like this happens again." Eslamdoust was also quoted in the Guardian report as saying that "safety and staffing go hand in hand. You cannot talk about safety while cutting back on the very people who keep others safe."

Five casualties have now been discharged and one - a member of LNER rail staff who tried to stop the attacker - remains in a life-threatening condition, British Transport Police (BTP) said in a statement on Sunday evening local time.

"Having viewed the CCTV from the train, the actions of the member of rail staff were nothing short of heroic and undoubtedly saved people's lives," read the BTP statement.

Police earlier said the two men arrested included a 32-year-old male, a black British national, and a 35-year-old man, a British national of Caribbean descent. Both were born in the UK. In an update, they said the 35-year-old, who is from London, was not involved, media updated. 

The high-speed LNER train departed from the northern city of Doncaster at 6.25 pm local time on Saturday evening, bound for London. The train had just left Peterborough station in Cambridgeshire when the attack took place. 

Police received their first emergency call at approximately 7.42 pm local time and immediately deployed armed officers. Within eight minutes of the first call, the two initial suspects were arrested after the train made an unplanned stop at Huntingdon station, the CNN reported.

At this stage in the investigation, there is "nothing to suggest" that the stabbing attack is a terrorist incident, British police said, according to the Gardian.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has described the incident was an "appalling incident" and was "deeply concerning" in a post on X. "My thoughts are with all those affected, and my thanks go to the emergency services for their response," he wrote on X.

The main opposition leaders, Kemi Badenoch and Ed Davey, have also reacted.

The Tory leader Badenoch initially said she was "deeply disturbed" by events. Later, she posted an update online suggesting "there's clearly something going wrong in our society right now."

"We cannot be a country where people are innocently going about their business and facing this level of violent crime," Badenoch has said.

The Lib Dem leader took a different approach in his statement, focusing on the "very best of Britain" and the "extraordinary bravery" of those at the scene.

Senior Reform UK politician Zia Yusuf told the BBC that he would not like to see increased security at train stations, saying it would impose "enormous friction" on the lives of law-abiding people "as a result of the actions of a tiny minority".

But he argued for a significant increase in the use of stop-and-search powers "to saturation", saying this would remove deadly weapons from circulation.

Global Times