Great Western Coffee Shop

Another sad demonstration of the lack of discipline of French drivers using level crossings, and the high penalty for it.

As so far known, a van towing some sort of construction machinery built as a small trailer got stuck on a crossing (PN 69) at Condé-Folie (Somme). Its jockey wheel got wedged in the tracks, despite the crossing being pretty level, suggesting it had not be raised. The passenger got out to free it, but had not done so when a train arrived. He jumped clear, but the driver (his father in law) was still inside and was killed.

This was around 8:00, so the train would have been 848828, a TER K21 running non-stop from Amiens to Abbeville, here at full speed.  There is one each way most hours, as well as one or two stopping trains (which would have been slowing at this point for a call at Longpré-les-Corps_Saints). There were 61 passengers on the train.

The collision damaged the front of the train seriously, and the van was largely destroyed (for a picture see here: (https://actu.fr/hauts-de-france/conde-folie_80205/au-sud-dabbeville-train-heurte-une-voiture-mort_31882919.html)). Part of the van got stuck under the train, and some reports say it derailed in part, but stopped on the track with no injuries to those on board.