When the flames and the choking black smoke of the fire had been cleared away from the wreckage of yesterday's train crash two miles from London's Paddington station, there was silence. The cries of "help me" heard from inside the carriages hours earlier were gone.
The dead and the injured had been taken away in ambulances. The Deputy Prime Minister, Mr John Prescott, who also has responsibility for transport, had visited the scene and extended his deepest sympathies.
All that was left were the burnt-out remains of at least eight empty train carriages, some upright, others lying on their sides, but all ripped and torn so easily one might wonder about travelling on a train ever again.
"Those people were probably just getting ready to get off the train when it happened and they never made it," one woman said as the police led us through to a clearing in the trees next to the train track.
Four hours earlier, at 8.11 a.m., the passengers the woman spoke of had been travelling on two trains, the 6.03 a.m. from Cheltenham to London and the 8.06 a.m. Paddington to Bedwyn, when they collided with a great bang and clash of steel.
Twenty-six people had died, police said, and more than a hundred were injured, some seriously. But as I stood on a 5 ft wall overlooking the crash site, it was hard to imagine how anyone had survived. Looking down from the wall at the mangled, smoke-blackened wreck of the remains of the trains, the sun was shining right through one of the carriages of a Great Western train, illuminating one of the chairs inside.
The light entered through a hole in the side of the train where a window used to be, where the passenger who had sat in that chair on the way to London had probably looked out at the view just hours before.
The carriage itself was still intact and sat upright on the track, one of only three carriages that looked complete, but all around was a scene of utter horror and panic.
To the left, from where the Thames Trains carriages had travelled from Paddington station, the carriages were barely distinguishable. Most had upended and landed on their sides. Smoke and flames blackened the carriages.
Large holes were torn in what looked like the roofs of the carriages, but the damage was so great, it was hard to tell if it was the roof at all.
Further back along the track to the right, the carnage was even worse. Intact carriages stood on the track parallel with train carriages lying on their sides. Other carriages were upside-down, as if frozen in time, and it was silent.
A group of Railtrack officials and emergency service personnel wearing high-visibility clothing huddled in a circle beside one of the carriages, which was lying on its side. Beside this group was a ladder leaning against the side of the train. Again, a large hole was torn in the roof, through which some lucky passengers had clambered to safety.
On the ground next to one of the trains, I saw two little heaps carefully covered over with red blankets. It was shortly before 1 p.m. and the emergency services were still trying to free the last of the passengers from the torn and bloody wreckage, but were the little heaps two poor passengers who hadn't made it? "I don't know," a policeman said, "but I hope not, I hope they're not what we think they are."
Earlier, walking along Ladbroke Grove, with its red steel bridge overlooking the train track, local residents stood on their doorsteps and wondered why another train had crashed in London.
"I thought safety standards were supposed to be getting better, that's what they told us, so why did this happen?" asked one man.
The owners of a local cafe would only talk to reporters if they bought a meal, but other residents, visibly shocked, simply wanted to talk. They had heard a "big crash and then lots of screaming" and when they stood on the bridge and looked down at the trains all they could see was smoke and flames.
"It was a really loud bang," said one woman. "I didn't know what it was and then someone said it was a train. There was lots of smoke and I could hear people shouting. It was horrible."