Terror on train in air gun attack

TWO women were left terrified after being showered with glass when vandals apparently fired an air gun at a train window.

The women were travelling on the Edinburgh to North Berwick service when the shots were fired from fields as it passed through Wallyford Station.

The impact shattered a window, showering the two female passengers with glass and leaving them badly shaken.

Investigating officers believe the shot came from an area to the west of the station and are appealing for witnesses to the incident, which took place at around 7.40pm on Friday.

Pc Keith Smith, spokesman for British Transport Police, said: "It is difficult to know what hit the train, but we believe it is quite possible the train was shot at.

"The object itself seems to have been rather small, but when it hit the window, it just collapsed with a bang. Two female passengers were sitting by the window when it collapsed, and they were very badly shaken up by it.

"Acts like this are very serious. Fortunately, this time no-one was injured, but we would appeal to anyone who might have witnessed this to come forward to prevent more serious incidents in the future."

A spokesman for ScotRail, which operates the service involved in Friday’s incident, said:

"This was clearly a very serious incident which could have killed someone. It is about time that sentences for incidents of this nature reflected the seriousness of the incident."

The attack took place just weeks after a female train conductor from Edinburgh needed 16 stitches after yobs hurled stones at a train as it approached Uddingston Station in Lanarkshire.

The 35-year-old woman is receiving counselling after the attack, which took place on a packed commuter train on April 22.

A sharp stone, four inches wide, was hurled though an open window on the moving train, hitting her in the mouth.

Last week, a train driver in West Lothian narrowly escaped injury when thugs threw a steel-framed mountain bike at his train as it passed under a railway bridge, shattering the windscreen.

The front window of the ScotRail service between Edinburgh and Bathgate was completely demolished following the incident at Deans South, in Livingston, last Monday at around 7.50am. Luckily, the driver managed to escape unscathed.

Last October, police launched a hunt for sick vandals who tried to derail a train by unscrewing nuts holding together a section of railway line in the Capital.

The lives of crews were put at risk and a potential tragedy was avoided by a routine maintenance crew who discovered the damage to the line at Pilrig.

Around 150 million is lost every year due to rail crime.