STONEA, UK — It’s an immobile object that is constantly encountering a force of resistance: a bridge in eastern England that lorries, campers and lorries hit with astonishing frequency.
Located in Stonea, about 30 miles from Cambridge, the bridge has been hit 33 times in the past 12 months because motorists misjudged its height. According to official statistics, that makes it the most crashed rail bridge in the UK, and many locals say those numbers really underestimate how often crashes happen.
From her seat at the nearby Golden Lion pub, Christina Swinden, the owner, is often the first to hear the impact, and she knows exactly what it means.
“I go out and offer them a cup of tea, tell them they won’t be the first and they won’t be the last and make sure everyone is okay,” she said, adding that she keep a set of traffic cones and a high-visibility jacket on standby for the inevitable next wreck.
Among the vehicles that hit the bridge was an army truck trapped underneath; a delivery truck was crushed, spilling eggs and potatoes on the street; horse-drawn carts; agricultural machinery; many campers; and many cars run under the bridge with bicycles strapped to the roof, only to show up on the other side without them.
Broken glass, shards of plastic and other debris lay on the side of the road. The gray and yellow hazard sign along the bridge’s low ceiling — just six feet and six inches off the ground — was smashed and torn, and the metal behind was warped and twisted.
After a drop in numbers, rail bridge collisions in the UK are on the rise again as traffic returns to pre-pandemic levels, experts say.
According to Network Rail, the agency responsible for rail infrastructure, from April 1, 2021 to March 31, 2022, the most recent period for which statistics are available, there were 1,833 collisions involving collisions. regarding the railway bridge. That’s an increase of nearly 200 from the previous year. The authorities attribute most of them to trucks and buses and estimate the cost at around £12 million, or about $14.6 million, over that 12-month period.
Benjamin Heydecker, professor of traffic studies at University College London, says there is a fairly strong correlation between the number of crashes on bridges and the volume of heavy cargo traffic on non-highway roads. , this correlation has increased since the beginning of the pandemic. back.
The road near Stonea is adjacent to an artificial waterway, mainly used for drainage, and there have been a number of serious accidents along this road, including several deaths, unrelated regarding the bridge.
However, there have been no known deaths or serious injuries from collisions with railway bridges in recent years, according to local police. The biggest loss is often the driver’s pride – not to mention their pocketbook.
With a low ground clearance, the bridge at Stonea provides an underpass for smaller cars to run underneath a railway line instead of waiting for larger cars at a manually operated intersection whose gates are closed when train approaching.
Just a few dozen meters in front of the bridge is a fork in the road where the driver has to choose the way. In doing so, some miss the very low clearance warning sign. Others just follow their navigation system.
However, that was a problem even before GPS, and the Stonea bridge, first built in 1895, has a long history of being one of the most bumped bridges in the UK. When it recently disappeared from the list of bridges involved in the most accidents, it was because the tunnel was closed after a serious collision involving agricultural machinery in 2019 that needed repair. cure all.
A new guard beam was installed to strengthen the structure against future accidents — a good investment, as it all turned out.
John Gowing, an elected representative in Cambridgeshire County Council said: “On the day it was reopened, someone bumped into it.
He said that for years, frequent collisions have been a hot topic of debate in the area, but locals have now accepted them as a fact of life. “This happens so often that it’s no longer mentioned,” said Mr Gowing, adding that recent repairs have helped the structure, if not passers-by. “It’s protected now so the vehicles are worse than the bridge.”
According to Pam Boss, who lives nearby, up to three campers a week can hit the bridge in the summer, and in the last seven days of winter there have been two collisions, one involving to the pickup truck.
Ms Boss said: ‘Some drivers need to take their driving lessons again, adding that she used to keep ‘a nice collection of rearview mirrors’ that were broken by careless drivers. and fly away. Some people who realized they had made a wrong turn backed into the low wall outside her house, damaging it.
But she sympathizes with some, including one man who was left in tears after a £2,000 bicycle strapped to the roof of his car was turned into a pile of worthless metal.
Speaking as a white van slowed to squeeze under the bridge, Glen Lea, another resident who lives nearby, said he thinks the actual number of strikes could be twice as high as the 33 reported. officially recorded because minor collisions are not reported.
Some local officials want to close the underpass and push all traffic to the railway. But views in the area are divided, as that would force local motorists to spend more time waiting for regular trains to pass.
At the Golden Lion pub, Ms Swinden said she wanted signs earlier to warn motorists that they were approaching a great danger. Most of those arrested were not driving their usual vehicle, had furniture on the roof or were towing a trailer.
The bumps have become familiar to her, but she tries not to judge. “If it was the same person every week, you would probably slap them on the head and call them idiots,” she said, “but it’s not. It’s someone having a really bad day. Whether it’s their fault or not – and it’s their fault because they hit a low bridge – they don’t need anyone else to play the ball.”
Sometimes it’s impossible not to see the funny side, she added, recalling an incident on Valentine’s Day a few years ago. A florist’s truck, Ms. Swinden recalls, hit the bridge, and while the taxi made it through, the rest of the truck didn’t, separating from the front and spilling all the cargo. its. She said: “The smell of fresh cut flowers down there is great.
One person who knows the sinking feeling this infamous bridge can cause is Mark Purser, the deputy mayor of the nearby town of March and a part-time driving instructor. Friends still remind him of an encounter he had there a quarter of a century ago.
While doing an errand for a local charity, Mr. Purser forgot that he wasn’t pulling his usual trailer. Instead, he has a much larger wooden Christmas float with Santa’s sleigh behind him.
“Suddenly, I realized that the bridge was much lower than I thought and the float was quite a bit taller than my trailer,” he said. “In my head are suitable obscene words. I hit the brake, it was too late, it was like balsa wood flying everywhere.”
Mr. Purser was unharmed, even though the buoy was not injured. “My ego, my pride was bruised but not anything else, but the sled was completely destroyed,” he said, adding that now whenever he drives Crossing the underpass, he involuntarily lowered his head.
“It was a heavy old railway bridge,” he said. “Anything that argues with it will be lost.”
