Andrew Johnson, who has been working as a train driver since 2018, is believed to have served in the Royal Navy for 17 years and was deployed to Iraq in 2003 during the second Gulf War
The hero train driver who safely pulled his train into Huntingdon station as a knifeman launched a frenzied eight-minute bloodbath is a Royal Navy and Iraq war veteran.
Andrew Johnson, from Peterborough, Cambs, is believed to have overridden an emergency alarm to guide the 6.25pm London-bound LNER Azuma to a platform where waiting armed officers swooped.
Dean Mcfarlane, 34, who works on the London Underground, described Mr Johnson as a “hero”. Dean – who was on the platform when blood-soaked victims left the train on Saturday night and spoke to Mr Johnson after the attack – said: “When the emergency alarm is pulled, the train will stop if the driver doesn’t override it.
“They would have been stranded in the middle of nowhere.” He added: “He’s 100 per cent a hero.
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“I spoke to him and he said people were banging on his cab door, screaming, ‘People are being stabbed, people are being stabbed’. He remained calm and he just did the right thing.”
Mr Johnson, who has been working as a train driver since 2018, is believed to have served in the Royal Navy for 17 years and was deployed to Iraq in 2003 during the second Gulf War.
He is understood to have ended his career as a Chief Petty Officer and having worked as a weapons engineer. During the Iraq War, Mr Johnson is believed to have served aboard a ship tasked with clearing mines in the Tigris river.
Despite having left the Navy and becoming a train driver, Mr Johnson still regularly supports his former servicemen and was fundraising for the Royal British Legion in his local Waitrose just days before Saturday’s attack.
Dean, who lives in Huntingdon, tonight told how he helped usher people from the platform as the knifeman ran amok.
He said: “People were running and screaming. They were covered in blood. I saw a man dressed in dark and he was carrying a knife.”
Meanwhile, a project manager told how she begged the train knifeman to spare her life, before he told her: “The Devil is not going to win.”
Dayna Arnold, 48, boarded the London-bound LNER Azuma with her partner, site manager Andy Gray, 37, but within minutes witnessed the terrifying attack unfold. The pair were seated in Coach J at the opposite end of the carriage from the attacker when he launched the eight-minute rampage which has left two people battling for their lives.
She said she became separated from Andy as passengers fled for their lives and when she tumbled to the floor she pleaded “please don’t” as he loomed over her wielding a 6ins kitchen knife.
Dayna said today: “I was running and when I looked back I saw the knifeman running after me. I fell down and I just said, ‘Please don’t kill me’. Something shifted in his face and he just carried on. He said: ‘The devil is not going to win.’
