In a bizarre if rather poetic incident, a metro train has crashed through the stop barrier in the Dutch city of Spijkenisse, only to be salvaged from plummeting to the ground by a piece of art titled ‘Saved by a Whale’s Tail’.
The wayward train crashed through the barrier at the De Akkers metro station at roughly 12.30am on Monday. Thankfully, there were no passengers on board at the time of the incident, and the driver was somehow unharmed.
Photos and video from the scene show the train’s undercarriage was torn away by the impressive twin whale tailfin sculptures, which extend some 25ft (7.62 meters) into the sky.
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The driver was taken to hospital as a precaution, but reportedly suffered no injuries. The same cannot be said for the train, however, the rear windows of which were smashed in, several carriages having been mangled in the midnight mayhem.
The city authorities now face the tricky task of extricating the train from its precarious perch atop the giant artwork, which is fittingly named ‘Saved by a Whale’s Tail’. What are the odds…?!
“It will be quite an exercise. It will take some time,” a police spokesperson told local media.
“There are two tails. If the metro had hit that other tail, I think it would have fallen through. Sure, it looks poetic, but it’s really a stroke of luck that the train is carried by the tail,” said Maarten Struijs, the artist and architect who created the whales.
An investigation into the circumstances of the crash and how the train flew so far off the rails is currently underway. According to Dutch media, the driver was arrested and brought in for questioning, but this is standard police procedure.
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