The passenger train which ploughed into a car at a level crossing in Berkshire. (Reuters)

Ufton Nervet (England), Nov. 7 (Reuters): A British high-speed passenger train crashed into a car at a level crossing and flew off the rails yesterday, killing six people and injuring scores.

?The 1735 train for Plymouth with 300 passengers on board collided with a vehicle at the crossing, completely derailing the train,? said Andy Trotter, deputy chief constable of British Transport Police.

Voicing astonishment that so many people survived the crash, he said: ?It is quite remarkable...if you look at the scene...which is a scene of some great devastation, that so many people managed to escape from such an awful event.?

Police said one of the six killed was in the car but declined comment on speculation the motorist may have been trying to commit suicide.

It was not immediately clear how the car came to be on the level crossing as the train was passing through.

Rail analysts said the train from London?s Paddington station to Plymouth in western England would have been travelling at 160 kph as it approached the crossing and passengers said it braked hard just before the crash.

?There was a big jolt, the train sped up and then turned on its side,? said passenger Harriet Myles, 19.

Among the scores of injured, 11 were seriously hurt. The train?s operator First Great Western, a subsidiary of rail and bus operator FirstGroup Plc, said the train driver was one of those killed.

There was no suggestion that infrastructure failure or railway staff were responsible for the crash, in a country where rail safety has been a political issue since a series of deadly crashes followed the industry?s privatisation in the 1990s.

Dozens of fire engines and ambulances were rushed to the crash site at Ufton Nervet, a village about 65 km west of London. A Reuters photographer saw a twisted carriage on its side surrounded by the searchlights of emergency service vehicles.

Some passengers were trapped for hours. Shortly before midnight police said that they believed no one was left in the wreckage but would carry on searching through the night. ?Conditions down there are very difficult. We?re working in the pitch dark with only spotlights,? an ambulance service spokesperson said.