Sparks fly as tipper driver crashes through rail line power cable

THE moment a reckless lorry driver brought down power cables and caused a halt to rail links in the East of the borough has been captured on film.

The incident happened at lunchtime on Wednesday, 19 May) at the Fobbing road crossing where a tipper driver had left his trailer in the air and it ripped through all the power cables as he sped across the crossing.

This shocking CCTV footage shows the moment a lorry struck overhead lines, causing the disruption this week between Stanford-le-Hope and Pitsea. Please take care around level crossings and railways, if you drive a vehicle check you know the height restrictions. pic.twitter.com/iOyKUIl6B2^[1]

All services between Pitsea and Stanford-le-Hope were unable to run on Wednesday, causing cancellations and disruption across the Tilbury link service.

Despite the best efforts of Network Rail engineers, the work was not completed overnight and but due to the severity of the damage there was further disruption yesterday.

British Transport Police colleagues are also liaising with the Highways team to ensure the local area is kept safe as this work takes place.

It is not yet known if the driver of the lorry, whose tyres were subject to small explosions of flame and sparks as his vehicle hit the wires, has been identified.

Yesterday Rob Mullen, managing director of c2c said: “We are really sorry to all of our customers who have been caught up in the disruption on the c2c route in the last 24hrs.

“We know this will have caused extensive delays to your journeys and our Network Rail and c2c colleagues are working hard to get our services up and running as quickly as possible.”

A statement from Network Rail said: “We received reports of an incident at Fobbing crossing on Wednesday 17 May at around 12:25pm.

“BTP reported that a transit tipper truck had struck the over head wires which damaged our over head line equipment.

“This incident closed all lines affecting c2c services and disrupting passengers for the rest of the day with contingency plans in place to keep trains moving.

“Our engineering teams assessed that the damage to the overhead wires and equipment stretched over 600 metres and repairs took place over night and into Thursday.

“All repairs were confirmed complete by 5pm and normal running resumedon Thursday, around 6pm.

References

1. ^{^} pic.twitter.com/iOyKUIl6B2 (t.co)
2. ^{^} May 19, 2023 (twitter.com)