Swedish train crash
Nasty level crossing accident in Sweden. BBC news are reporting two deaths; but it doesn't say if those deaths were passengers or traincrew, or from the lorry.
The accident happened when a passenger train collided with a lorry on a railway crossing near the south-eastern coastal town of Kristianstad.
As is usual for this kind of accident, the cause seems to the recklessness of the road user.
Swedish radio quoted witnesses as saying the lorry appeared to make a late run for the crossing as the barrier descended.
If the lorry driver isn't one of the two fatalities, then he needs the book thrown at him. Just like they threw the book at Gary Hart.
This Swedish news site (in Swedish) has quite a few pictures. It looks like the train was a 3-car DMU of the type used on many Scandinavian express services (I think the design originated in Denmark). The leading car appears to have spun though 180 degrees and is facing the way it came. There's a lot of damage to the front end.
Odd, on the BBC site it gives the impression that the truck was destroyed (including in their image, which shows truck parts in the foreground), but in the images on the Swedish site you have posted there is a Volvo FH with relatively minor corner damage, certainly not life threatening stuff to the truck driver.
Was it a trailer that was destroyed, or was this another truck that was waiting at the crossing?
Posted by: Martyn Read on September 13, 2004 12:51 PM