Facts About the Train Times on July 7th

 

UPDATED: Official Home Office 7/7 report is wrong!

Since the publication of the information that appears below this update, the Home Secretary Dr John Reid confirmed before Parliament, on 11 July 2006, that the official Home Office report about 7/7 -- a report that took ten months to produce and publish anonymously -- was wrong with regard to its allegation about which Thameslink train from Luton to King's Cross the alleged perpetrators caught. In other words, John Reid's admission of the error is more evidence of the Home Office report being a highly flawed and easily discredited document and, further, that the information uncovered by indpendent, public J7 researchers has now been officially validated.

On July 11th 2006, the Home Secretary John Reid announced in Parliament that the Official Report was wrong in giving the time of the train that the suspects took from Luton to London as 7.40am. This led to relatives of the bomb victims renewing calls for an inquiry into the July 7th bombings as it raised concerns about the accuracy of the rest of the report. Strangely, Scotland Yard said that the official account had been produced by the Home Office and police had never given it the time for the train. In fact, according to the BBC, it was the police that pointed out the error to the Home Office.

A spokesman for the Home Office said the mistake may have come from erroneous first-hand witness accounts of the timing it had received and then passed on. Where could the Home Office, who produced the Official Report have obtained the train time from other than the police, who were conducting Sir Ian Blair's "largest criminal inquiry in English history"? It is also doubtful as to whether or not "erroneous first-hand witness accounts" would have been given to any source other than the police. It is also odd that the police only pointed out the error a year after the event, two months after the Official Report had been released and just days after the first anniversary of 7/7.

Perhaps it was a coincidence that the July Seventh Truth Campaign had raised this issue in the national media not once but twice in the space of a week shortly before this announcement was made. It is also still unclear, in the light of this clarification by the Home Secretary, why the 7.25 train was never given by any official or media source at any point beforehand as being the train that the accused took, and why no eye-witnesses have ever stated they saw the accused board it or on it.

Since this admission, J7: The July 7th Truth Campaign has endeavoured to discover through a series of Freedom of Information requests how such an egregious error could have been made in the official Home Office narrative after ten months of investigation, and despite the information about the cancelled 7.40am train being in the public domain since August 2005. The Home Office have repeatedly delayed responding to these requests for over 6 months and the Home Office report still has not been amended in line with John Reid's acknowledgement of the error and statement that the report would be amended.

"The largest criminal inquiry in English history"

In Sir Ian Blair's 'largest criminal inquiry in English history', not a single image has been released showing all four alleged perpetrators in London together, or even separately.

At a Metropolitan Police press conference in the days after July 7th, it was announced that the alleged bombers caught the 7.40am Thameslink train from Luton to King's Cross. That the alleged bombers caught the 7.40am train was widely reported in television and newspaper reports the world over. This 'fact' was also confirmed in the official Government narrative of events.

The Song Remains the Same

Ten months to the day after the horrific events of July 7th, the Sunday Observer published The Real Story of 7/7 that claimed to be 'the definitive account of how four friends from northern England changed the face of western terrorism' in which the following claim is made:

"7:40am The four bombers catch a Thameslink train, which winds through the affluent commuter belt of Hertfordshire towards King's Cross."

However, there is one small problem with this story - independent public researchers have confirmed that the 7.40am Thameslink train from Luton to King's Cross was cancelled and did not run on July 7th.

This article discusses the anomalies of the train times based on the independently verified facts about the movements of the trains on the morning of July 7th. The story is in two parts; The Train Times from Luton to King's Cross and The London Underground Train Times from King's Cross.

The Train Times from Luton to King's Cross

The well-known picture of the four ‘bombers’ entering Luton station on the morning of July 7th was released by the police on July 16th. It apparently shows them catching the 7.40am train, as they announced at the press conference.

The image is time and date-stamped as 07.21:54, a few seconds shy of 7.22am.

The police had earlier inspected CCTV pictures of them at King’s Cross mainline station at 8.26 am, or so we were told. The Luton to King’s Cross Thameslink service normally takes 36 minutes, and so the 7.40am from Luton would usually arrive into King’s Cross at 8.16am. This would have fitted in neatly with these two timed CCTV images given out by the police.

Generally, official statements in the wake of the bombings claimed that they had caught the 7.40am train. But, this train was cancelled that morning.

Perhaps because of this, other media reports claimed that the four had caught the 7.48am from Luton, as the Daily Telegraph on the 14th July told its readers:

“After two trains were cancelled yesterday, the eight-carriage 07:48 service was fuller than usual.”

Note that the 7.30am train wasn’t cancelled, it was just running late and the 07.48 claim was likewise made on a Panorama program on October 27th 2005 entitled: ‘The 7/7 Bombers – A Psychological Investigation’. A July 7th Truth Campaign researcher attempted to hold the BBC to account for their error in a programme that overtly offered a 'scientific' approach.

A book about July 7th by Justice Not Vengeance activist, Milan Rai, echoes this view and states the four young men catch the 07.48 from Luton. However, Mr Rai sourced this information only from a newspaper report and appears not to have bothered to check one of the most easily verifiable aspects of the alleged journey undertaken by the accused.

It turned out however that all trains were severely delayed on July 7th, due to problems with overhead lines in the Mill Hill Area.

These facts only emerged weeks after the event, when two researchers visited Luton station on the morning of 23rd August, and conducted on-platform interviews with commuters.

Computer records of the train timetables were kindly made available both by Marie Bernes at Customer Relations at King's Cross, and from Chris Hudson, Communications Manager of Thameslink Rail, at Luton station.

That gave the following Luton to King's Cross timetable for the morning of July 7th:

Thameslink Trains Luton to King's Cross, 7-8 am on July 7, 2005

Booked Departure	Actual departure	Due in at King’s X	Actual Arrival King’s X	Delay (minutes)
07.16	07.21	07.48	08.19	31
07.20	07.20	08.08	08.15	7
07.24	07.25	08.00	08.23	23
07.30	07.42	08.04	08.39	35
07.40	Cancelled	Cancelled	Cancelled	Cancelled
07.48	07.56	08.20	08.42	22

It is evident from this table, that this 07.48 train did not arrive in King’s Cross until after the two of the underground trains involved had already departed King's Cross underground station.

Was any train feasible? Let us consider an earlier train, which left Luton station at 07.25, and arrived into King’s Cross Thameslink at 08.23 am; thus, its journey took 58 minutes. This scenario would give the four young men barely three minutes to walk up the stairs at Luton, buy their tickets in the morning rush-hour and then get to the platform. Some have suggested that Lindsay German from Aylesbury had arrived early and bought the four tickets in advance (day-returns at 22 pounds each), to make this feasible. But, from King’s Cross Thameslink, it takes a good seven minutes to walk through the long, Underground tube passage which includes a ticket barrier, to reach the main King’s Cross station, in the morning rush-hour with large rucksacks – in no way could they have been captured on the 08.26am alleged CCTV picture.

Thus, no train that morning is capable of getting a passenger into both of the CCTV images. This could be part of the reason why the police can never release the images they claim to have, of the four at King’s Cross.

This major breakdown of the official story came about through the testimony of a commuter who wished to remain anonymous: she arrived at Luton station that morning at 7.25am, and testified that she had no train to catch until 7.58am, because the 7.30am and 7.40am trains from Luton were cancelled on July 7th. She could only get a slow train at 7.58am from platform 3 to King's Cross, which didn't arrive there until 8.43am. It was so packed that many could not get onto the train at Luton*. (The 07.30 was delayed in arriving into Luton that morning and came into platform 4, whereas the London trains normally come to platforms 1 or 3, which is why she believed it had been cancelled.)

For further discussion of, eg, how long it would have taken at Luton station:

http://iraqwar.mirror-world.ru/article/61251 [archive.org copy]

* This interview, temporarily offline, is contained in this 40-minute video:

DOWNLOAD '7/7 A SUMMARY OF THE EVIDENCE' (20MB .WMV via 911truth) or on Google video. You can also view an updated video here on Google Video.

 

The London Underground Train Times from King's Cross

After a long and convoluted series of inquiries, an independent public researcher managed to obtain the departure times from King's Cross of the bombed trains. The confirmation of the these times was received on September 22nd:

Subject: Re: train times on 7/7/05

Let me also apologise for the delay in responding to your query on the times of the trains that left King's Cross station on the morning of 7th July 2005.

I have been in touch with the British Transport Police and have managed to obtain the following information:

- the Eastbound Circle line train (204) left King's Cross at 08:35.
- the Westbound Circle line train (216) left King's Cross at 08:42
- the Piccadilly Line train south left King's Cross at 08:48

I trust the above is of use to you.

Vicky
Vicky Hutchinson
Transport Security Directorate
Department for Transport
Zone 5/8 Southside
105 Victoria Street
London
SW1E 6DT
Tel: 020 7944 2783
Fax: 020 7944 2174

Eight months after the start of Sir Ian Blair's 'largest criminal inquiry in English history' and there is still no credible official story of how the alleged bombers got from outside Luton station to King's Cross.

Is one photograph of the four young, British men alleged to have perpetrated these attacks, apparently taken 30 miles from the scene of the incidents, and in which three of the faces cannot be positively identified sufficient evidence to act as judge and jury for the accused and those that died?

Should any explanation for the deaths and injuries on July 7th 2005 be allowed to start with a train from Luton that didn't run, or a train that arrived in London too late for the accused to catch two of the underground trains?

The July 7th Truth Campaign thinks not. Please sign the petition calling on the government to RELEASE THE EVIDENCE that conclusively proves the story in the Home Office report beyond reasonable doubt.