Rail crash narrowly averted
A rail crash was narrowly averted at Izegem (West Flanders) last week when a lorry got stuck on a level crossing as a goods train approached.
The lorry driver struggled to take a sharp bend just beyond the level crossing on the outskirts of the centre of the town. Because of the difficulty the lorry driver stepped down from his vehicle to get a better view of the situation, but his trailer still partly blocked the level crossing. At that very minute the barrier came down and the alarm bell sounded signalling the approach of a train.
The driver jumped into the lorry with lightning speed and managed to move his lorry just in time to avoid the approaching goods train from crashing into it.
"It could have been a lot worse" says Thomas Baeken of the rail track company Infrabel. "The traffic code says that a driver may not drive onto an intersection if he or she cannot vacate it immediately. This also goes for level crossings. Images suggest the lorry driver couldn't take the bend. In such cases the police should be alerted immediately using the emergency number 112. Then we can stop the train. This didn't happen here."