Summary (part) wrote:At approximately 03:10 hrs on Friday, 31 May 2013, a car driver was forced to take action in order to avoid colliding with an engineering train that was traversing Balnamore automatic half barrier level crossing, which is located between Coleraine and Ballymoney stations on Northern Ireland Railways’ Belfast to Londonderry/Derry line. The car subsequently struck metal fencing forming part of the crossing, causing minor injuries to its two occupants and damage to the car. The crew of the engineering train spoke with the car driver and then continued work without reporting the accident.
At the time of the accident, the engineering train was undertaking weed-spraying operations within a possession of the line, which meant that operation of passenger trains on the line had been suspended. Because the line was under possession, Balnamore level crossing, which is normally automatically operated by approaching trains, was being operated manually via its local controls. However, as the train passed over the crossing, its half barriers had not been lowered and its road traffic signals were not operating, even though this was required by the railway rules relating to this type of level crossing. This meant that the car driver did not have enough warning to stop his car before the level crossing became occupied by the train.
Full report can be seen at http://www.raib.gov.uk/cms_resources.cfm?file=/140512_R102014_Balnamore.pdf