A TIPPERARY man who said he had to abandon his car seconds before it was destroyed by a train has been giving his account to local gardai.
He said the railway barriers at Emly, Co Tipperary, came down while he was crossing the' line and the train "appeared from nowhere", forcing him to jump from the car and run for his life.
The car was then struck by a Dublin-Cork night train weighing 110 tonnes and travelling at around 80 m.p.h. A Garda spokesman said the car was "completely and utterly destroyed".
"It is in about 1,300 little pieces. It was carried along the track. The rear end was found 100 yards away, the front end was about 300 or 400 yards. This could easily have been a disaster, not just for the driver but for the train passengers. Derailment was a live possibility", said a Garda spokesman.
Hundreds of train passengers were stranded for two hours after the collision, which occurred at 9 p.m. on Thursday night. "We did not want to put the man through an interview on the night, after him seeing what happened to his car. We talked to him this morning," said a garda yesterday.
Gardai say the crossing has warning signs, lights flash when a train is due, and barriers come down about 30 seconds before the train passes. The Garda officer said barriers only cover half the road on either side. This could allow a' motorist to "zig-zag" across.