16-year-old boy killed on Hampshire railway track

A schoolboy has died after apparently toppling 30ft from a railway bridge onto a live wire.

The 16-year-old boy's body was not discovered until a woman commuter noticed his crumpled form lying by the track.

The boy was thought to have fallen from the 30ft bridge over the lines at Hook Railway Station near Basingstoke, Hampshire, during the night.

It is not thought he was hit by a train, but he might have died on impact with the live tracks.

A spokesman for the British Transport Police, which took over the investigation from Hampshire Police, said that the death was being treated as 'unexplained.'

Train services through Hook were halted for several hours as the power to the live rail was switched off and arrangements were made to remove the body from beside the tracks.

The police spokesman said the body of the teenager was taken to the mortuary at the North Hampshire Hospital in Basingstoke, where a post mortem examination would be carried out to try to find the exact cause of his death.

The spokesman told the Daily Mail: 'Officers are trying to make a formal identification of the body and inform relatives of the young man's death,'

It is not yet known whether the boy's death was an accidental or a deliberate suicide.

Related articles

Aspiring model killed by commuter train in Wales