Major delays, several canceled trains on the Strasbourg-Mulhouse-Basel route, and a big scare for a 17-year-old driver. The Alsatian railway network was heavily disrupted this Monday morning for nearly three and a half hours. Traffic was completely halted between Colmar and Sélestat.
At around 8:40 AM, a TER train carrying passengers collided head-on with a car that was immobilized on the tracks north of Colmar station, according to reports from Le Républicain Lorrain and Info Trafic Haut-Rhin. The car was dragged by the locomotive and became wedged at the front of the train, before being pulled along for several hundred meters.
nstead of making a right-angle left turn onto Rue des Papeteries in Colmar, the young driver lost control of his vehicle, which continued straight ahead, crashing through the fence that separates the tracks from the road. The car ended up stuck on the railway. The 17-year-old driver escaped unharmed as he managed to leave the vehicle well before the train’s impact but was deeply shaken. He was later taken to the police station.
A towing company located very close to the railway and the accident site alerted emergency services before attempting, immediately afterward, to pull the vehicle out of its position. The car’s rear axle had already been secured, but fortunately, the winch cable had not yet been tightened when the TER train crashed into the car stuck on the tracks.
Shortly before 11:30 AM, another train arrived at the scene to take care of about 500 passengers who had been stranded in the accident-affected train, before finally continuing their journey to Strasbourg.
