A Dublin Bus driver gave chase to a truck in the city centre on Wednesday night which hit two railway bridges causing significant delays to commuter trains.
The truck, which was carrying a heavy load of large concrete blocks, first hit the underside of the bridge at North Strand at about 8pm, where the Maynooth line diverges from Connolly Station, knocking one of the large blocks on to the road behind it.
Witnessing that crash, the Dublin Bus driver pursued the vehicle in a bid to warn it of its dangerously loose cargo and to prevent a possible further accident.
However, the truck then hit the bridge on Amien Street beside Connolly Station. At that point the bus driver managed to overtake the vehicle and prevent him from travelling any further.
It is unclear if there were any passengers on the bus at the time.
The incident caused delays of between 20 and 40 minutes to trains running in and out of Connolly Station which is at the centre of all lines travelling through the east of the city.
"We were alerted and had to stop the trains while the bridges were checked," an Iarnród Éireann spokesman told The Irish Times.
Even if not immediately evident, the potential damage to bridges caused by collisions can be severely dangerous.
After diversions were put in place during the visit of former US president George Bush to Ireland in 2004, a truck driver crashed into a bridge on the Limerick to Ennis line which had to be completely replaced.
In 1975, a train derailed in Gorey, Co Wexford, causing the death of five people moments after a truck hit the bridge it was approaching.
“[Incidents are] actually reducing overall. In terms of a truck hitting two bridges, I can only think of one other instance in the last 20 years,” the spokesman said.
Today, the number of such collisions has fallen due in part to the reduction of heavy traffic in Dublin following the opening of the Port Tunnel, advances in the national motorway network and awareness drives by the Irish Road Haulage Association.
