Quickly shoot under the railway barriers to catch your train. Incident fighter John van Lierop of ProRail knows all too well what the consequences can be. He goes to the railway if an accident happens or almost happens, in Brabant or Limburg. “They are in a hurry, want to act tough and so everything has to give way”, he gets into the heads of the mostly young people who create dangerous situations on and around the track.
The number of near-accidents on and around the track is increasing, according to ProRail, the rail manager announced on Monday. And that’s why the rail manager is launching Monday a new campaign mainly aimed at young people. “I hope it makes sense. Even if you only save one or two lives with it,” says Van Lierop.
What people don’t realize, he says, is that a driver can’t do anything when he sees something happening on the track. “They can’t steer left or right, just honk really hard and brake,” he explains. Exactly the reason why, according to him, not only accidents, but also near-accidents have a huge impact on railway colleagues.
Near accident in Rijen
At the beginning of last month, Van Lierop was called up to go to Rijen when a near-accident happened at a railway crossing there on a Sunday. A young cyclist was able to jump off his bicycle just in time, otherwise he would have ended up under the train. The boy suffered minor injuries. “But this could have ended very differently,” the incident officer knows. “If young people realized this, they would leave it out of their heads.”
“Think of your own safety”, he therefore wants to impress upon them. “And think of the consequences for your loved ones if things really go wrong.”
Since 2008
Van Lierop has been working as an incident officer for ProRail since 2008. According to him, an accident or near-accident happens on the railway somewhere in the Netherlands. In case of an accident in Brabant or Limburg, he always goes to the place where it happened. “But then we are often too late,” he says.
He is called in for near misses if it has consequences for the train service. For example, when a startled driver cannot continue driving and a replacement has to be arranged. Or when passengers have to be evacuated from a train as a result of an incident. Fortunately, it is not always a bloody situation that he has to deal with.
“How can I do this job for so long? I don’t take anything home because I can look at situations quite clinically,” he says. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be able to keep this up.”
The numbers
This year, ProRail already counted 153 near-collisions on the track and the rail manager thinks this number will rise even further. In comparison: last year there were 206 near-accidents on and around the track. The railway company does not have specific Brabant figures. But a spokesperson says on Monday that he “does not have the idea that the figures in Brabant deviate from the national picture.”
ALSO READ:
Near-accident Rijen: ‘Almost every driver experiences this’
Young cyclist drives past closed barrier and escapes train
Watch one of ProRail’s campaign videos here: