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Vehicle crashes through ‘safe’ bridge barrier onto busy commuter train below
A concrete ready mix lorry has crashed through a rail bridge barrier onto a commuter train below. The incident occurred on 5 November 2010 on track near Oxshott, Surrey.
The falling vehicle punched a hole in the carriage roof of the 15:05 Guildford to London service, operated by South West Trains.
A spokesman for Hanson confirmed the mixer was carrying its pre-mixed concrete from a plant at Bifleet to a site in Epsom. Hanson do not own the vehicle or employ the driver. He added:
“we need to talk to Kingman Services (mixer owner) to try and find out what’s happened and see if we can do anything in terms of helping to clear up the problem. We use contractors to deliver all our products rather than having our own fleet of vehicles and drivers”
The vehicle driver and one passenger are seriously injured. It took six hours to free the lorry driver from the vehicle cab. Six passengers have minor injuries.
It is understood that the bridge ’passed’ safety checks in a nationwide assessment of road/rail bridges following the Selby rail disaster in which a Land Rover came off the road on to the East Coast Main Line in February 2001.
A Network Rail spokesman confirmed the assessment after the crash which killed 10 people found the bridge to be “well protected and not in need of any strengthening”.