A few years ago I found an articulated tram bent like a banana following a collision with a road vehicle, and now I’ve found another – this time in the Dutch city of Utrecht.
Donald Ikkersheim photo via ad.nl
The crash was covered in AD.nl.
Uithoflijn tram derailed at FC Utrecht stadium: ‘A terribly loud thunder’
Jeroen van Barneveld
February 16 2021
A tram on the Uithoflijn derailed near the FC Utrecht stadium on Tuesday morning after a collision with a delivery van from supermarket chain Jumbo. There were no injuries, reports the Utrecht Safety Region.
The tram ran almost completely out of its rails around 11 a.m. and ended up transversely on the Laan van Maarschalkerweerd. The emergency services came out en masse. A trauma helicopter was also called in to provide medical assistance.
Safety region Utrecht expects that the tram recovery will take hours. U-OV reports that the overhead wires are badly damaged and that there are probably no more trams running on the Uithoflijn today.
You can see the site of the crash on Google Street View – the light rail tracks crosses from one side of the road to the other at a set of traffic lights.
The Uithoflijn is an express tram line in the city of Utrecht, and uses CAF Urbos 100 trams.
I know from talking to trains drivers that they particularly hate level crossings where the road crosses the tracks at an oblique angle, because it inevitably means that there is going to be a greater blind spot for drivers of road vehicles.
Great find and I will add the photos to my tram accident folder under ‘tram on car’. It seems weird that a van can derail a tram so badly.