Train staff and commuters were left baffled on Wednesday after a car blocked a Scots railway line for about five hours.
Emergency services were called to Stirling Station after a black Renault Clio was spotted on the tracks at about 12.20pm.
British Transport Police believe the car “accidently” ended up on the railway line after somehow travelling from the neighbouring car park.
The force is investigating the incident, with Network Rail also launching a probe into the circumstances.
The vehicle landed between platforms two and three at the station.
Nobody was injured during the incident.
Early on Wednesday afternoon, ScotRail shared a photo of a black car on the line to its Twitter account and stated that its trains would be able to divert around the “obstruction”.
NEW: A car has encroached onto the railway at Stirling. We're working closely with the emergency services.
We're able to divert trains around this obstruction by using Platforms 6 & 9 at the station. Use P6 if you're heading for Perth/Aberdeen and P9 for Glasgow/Edinburgh. ^CT pic.twitter.com/OTA6zC4elt
— ScotRail (@ScotRail) October 14, 2020
Journeys were able to run on platforms six and nine as the car was recovered.
However, later in the day Network Rail engineers had to turn off the power to the overhead wires at Stirling Station in order to remove the vehicle. This resulted in some train services being called off.
UPDATE: Services are now being altered to allow the recovery of the car to begin. @NetworkRailScot's team have switched off the power to the overhead lines to allow this to happen safely. ^CT pic.twitter.com/uv2wpQvNe3
— ScotRail (@ScotRail) October 14, 2020
A British Transport Police spokesman said: “Officers were called to Stirling railway station at 12.17pm this afternoon following reports of a car on the tracks.
“The car is believed to have accidentally ended up on the tracks from the station’s car park.
“Officers are still determining how the car ended up on the tracks. Thankfully, those in the car have not been seriously injured.”
A Network Rail spokesman confirmed the circumstances of the incident are being investigated.
He added: “The vehicle got on the railway and it stopped between platforms two and three. It didn’t disrupt services and which were able to use platforms six and nine.”
Earlier today ScotRail posted: “A car has encroached on to the railway at Stirling. We’re working closely with the emergency services.
“We’re able to divert trains around this obstruction by using platforms six and nine at the station. Use P6 if you’re heading for Perth/Aberdeen and P9 for Glasgow/Edinburgh.”
Our team is at Stirling responding to this incident. We're working on a plan to remove the car from the railway, and get Platform 2 and 3 open again ASAP. https://t.co/FeuMmcWFD1
— Network Rail Scotland (@NetworkRailSCOT) October 14, 2020
Network Rail carried an inspection of the tracks once the car was uplifted.
Services returned to normal about 5.25pm.
OK – good news! The car has been removed from the railway. We're checking over the track and the platform to ensure there hasn't been any damage caused. @ScotRail @LNER pic.twitter.com/nditAwDeTe
— Network Rail Scotland (@NetworkRailSCOT) October 14, 2020
The photo of the incident sparked a large number of comments from baffled social media users, with the initial tweet re-shared thousands of times.
How does that even happen?? Was Mr Magoo driving?? pic.twitter.com/MU3z9J3HIR
— 🏴🌈 peach 🌈🏴😷✊🏿BLM✊🏾 (@peachwatson) October 14, 2020
“Encroached” feels like an understatement, somewhat.
— Stuart Poynton (@sapoynton) October 14, 2020
HOW?!
— Ciara Webb (@ciarawebbonweb) October 14, 2020
You can't park there, mate.
— Iain (@CemetryGates89) October 14, 2020
ScotRail was even forced to confirm the image was not fake at one point.
I wish we had the time in our day to fake things like this, David! ^CT
— ScotRail (@ScotRail) October 14, 2020
Bizarrely an almost identical incident took place on the railway line near Fort William at about the same time on Wednesday.
Services were delayed while the vehicle was removed.
