9:20am Friday 14th August 2009
PASSENGERS narrowly escaped death when a bunch of mindless vandals dumped concrete blocks on a railway line in Swindon.
The rush-hour train, a high speed First Great Western 1L68 passenger vehicle carrying up to 750 people, struck the steel reinforced blocks near Stratton Green Bridge but managed to stay on the rails.
The train was heading to London Paddington from South Wales, but was so badly damaged it could not continue its journey.
Twenty-one other trains due to pass through Swindon were severely delayed.
The potentially fatal incident was just one of four dangerous incidents on Swindon railway lines in a month.
Geoff Jackson-Haines, operations manager for Network Rail, said: “We still have no idea how the train stayed on the tracks. Normally you would be looking at a derailment and death.
“It was a 125mph train which would take a mile and a quarter to stop so there would have been no chance to avoid hitting those slabs.
“I don’t know what possesses anyone to go onto the rails. I am qualified to work up there and I am still nervous about the idea that 125mph hunks of metal are whooshing past me.
“What these trespassers don’t understand is that it is not just their lives they are risking, but the lives of up to 750 passengers on board that train.”
None of the culprits has ever been caught following the incident at 5pm on Monday, July 13.
Just a day later two young children scattered stones across the same part of the tracks.
Earlier in July a shopping trolley was placed on tracks near Lady Margaret Bridge, Stratton, and in June trespassers were spotted on the track near Stratton Green Bridge.
Network Rail is now erecting fencing to stop anyone being able to get on the track in the vicinity of the bridge.
Mr Jackson added Network Rail had recently spent £50,000 to remove graffiti daubed inside rail tunnels, near Blagrove, West Swindon.
A spokesman for First Great Western said: “We work hard to get our customers to their destinations safely and on time and this sort of thing has a huge knock-on effect.
“We do not know how the concrete ended up on the line but would like to warn people of the potential dangers of going close to the platform edge, climbing down onto the track or throwing things onto the line.”
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.thisiswiltshire.co.uk