Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
The whale’s tail of a sculpture caught the front carriage of a metro train as it rammed through the end of an elevated section of rails with the driver escaping injuries in Spijkenisse. Peter Dejong/PA
Dewhaled
Whale sculpture stops Dutch train plummeting off platform
No passengers were aboard the train at the time of the incident.
A TRAIN DRIVER in the Netherlands has escaped injury after his front carriage rammed through the end of an elevated section of rails and was caught by a sculpture of a whale’s tail.
The train was left perched upon one of two tail fins known as “flukes” several yards above the ground in Rotterdam.
It created such a stir locally that authorities urged sightseers to stay away, adding that coronavirus restrictions were in force.
Some 50 people were at the scene as engineers tried to work out how to stabilise and then remove the train amid strengthening winds.
“A team of experts is investigating how we can make it safe and get it down,” Carly Gorter, a spokeswoman for the local security authority, said.
“It’s tricky,” she added.
The company that operates the metro line said the driver was uninjured and there were no passengers on the train when it crashed through stop barriers at the end of the station in the town of Spijkenisse on this morning.
have your say