Lives risked at crossing - Adger reveals

Cr Beth Adger revealed to a recent Council committee meeting that she was at the Cullybackey level crossing on two separate occasions just a couple of weeks apart when barriers that had come down failed to go up again.

On both occasions, she raised the alarm using the emergency phone at the tracks but that during the latest incident, on October 8, she said she had to block the road with her car to prevent some motorists play Russian roulette by driving on across.

“People who were fed up waiting were driving on over. I had to jam the road to keep drivers from going through because if a train had come it could have been derailed and lives would have most certainly been lost”.

A Translink spokesperson said: “Safety is our top priority. We have a signalling faulting team who carry out regular maintenance to minimise faults to our level crossings. The fault at Cullybackey level crossing on October 8 was as a result of an electrical fault and this was fixed within an hour and a quarter of the original fault being reported. We would apologise to road and crossing users for any inconvenience caused by this incident...We would remind them to ensure all appropriate warning signals and instructions are fully observed and obeyed for their safety.”