NEWS

Rail crash: community demands action

02 March 2007 06:00

An anxious community last night demanded action after a level crossing in their Norfolk village claimed its third life in 18 months.

A man aged in his 50s was killed after attempting to zigzag through a half-barrier crossing at Swainsthorpe, south of Norwich, straight into the path of a 10-carriage express train travelling at 100mph.

The force of the collision, at 7.25am, left his silver Vauxhall Astra a mangled wreck - but while the train driver and some of the 44 passengers on board were left in shock, none suffered injury and the train stayed on the tracks.

It is believed the motorist tried to escape from his car after realising he could not cross in time.

But his body was found close to the level crossing on Church Road.

The remains of his car were shunted a mile up the line.

Last night, with the first trains passing through Swainsthorpe again at 6pm, it emerged that a campaign had been launched in the village last weekend calling for improvements to be made to the Church Road crossing.

And local MP Richard Bacon yesterday wrote to the transport secretary Douglas Alexander calling for an urgent review of half-barrier crossings, which he claimed represent “too great an opportunity for misuse”.

The collision came just one day after the Office of Rail Regulation called for massive safety improvements to be made to level crossings, calling for many to be replaced by bridges.

It said that Britain's 7,700 level crossings represent the greatest risk of a fatal rail accident on the rail network. The risk of a fatality in a road/rail collision is some 40 to 45pc greater than in a road traffic accident.

The entire village of Swainsthorpe was sealed off for much of yesterday while the body was recovered and Network Rail officials and British Transport Police started investigations into what happened.

Police said eyewitnesses had told them that the Astra was being driven over the track when the collision occurred and had not been stationary, ruling out suicide.

A spokesman for Network Rail confirmed that the level crossing barriers were working as they should be - and a senior rail source confirmed that the car had been hit while zig-zagging through the crossing.

Yesterday thousands of commuters from London were forced to disembark at Diss and take coaches to Norwich. Throughout the day One Railway had encouraged passengers to travel to the capital via Cambridge, suspending ticket restrictions from Norwich.

Yesterday's fatality was the third in 18 months along the stretch, and has similarities to the death of Darrell Sheens in November 2005.

Mr Sheens was ruled to have driven deliberately on to the track and made no attempt to avoid a three-carriage train holding 15 people, with his car bursting into flames and being shunted a quarter of a mile down the track.

Last November saw a second suicide at Swainsthorpe after a man was hit by a train while standing stationary on the line.

Richard Bacon, MP for South Norfolk, said yesterday: “I've had a long talk with Network Rail about this and they say half barriers are no more risky than full barriers.

“There is a chance that cars could get caught in between two full barriers. But people won't generally take the risk by attempting to cross those after the lights start flashing.

“When there's the capability of zigzagging through half barriers some people will foolishly take it and in the light of today's collision there needs to be an urgent review of their future use.

“It makes the argument for having full barriers so much stronger. We need to make it certain that it is impossible to get across the track when the barriers descend.”

Local resident Claire Turner spent last weekend launching a petition among villagers at Swainsthorpe, demanding improvements to Church Road to make it more safe.

She said: “I spent Saturday talking to residents along Church Road and everyone was in agreement about how dangerous the crossing is there.

“Because of that I'm putting together a petition. There have been previous incidents and today's crash is sadly just the latest example of the problems along there.

“We need a whole raft of new safety measures along the road to prevent anything like this ever happening again.”

And district councillor John Peterson added: “This level crossing is something I do think needs to be looked at, clearly this is not the first time something like this has happened on it.

“I'm sure there will be an inquiry into today's collision and one of the areas I hope it will look at is whether full barriers would be safer than half barriers.”

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