“I have often been asked after these incidents “why can’t you stop”, or “don’t you have an emergency brake?” People seem to think that there is a way that I could have avoided the situation.

“The saying 'rides likes it's on rails' is so true, and that means that I can’t swerve to avoid a vehicle on a level crossing. Normally there is so little warning of a collision that even applying the emergency brakes has little effect on the outcome.

“A 1000 tonne train travelling at 70 kilometres per hour can take up to 750 metres to stop,” Ian says.

All except one of the collisions that Ian has been involved in were at crossings that had flashing lights and bells operating at the time of the collision.

He says he witnesses bad driving around level crossings almost on a daily basis and has lost count of how many near collisions that happen. “They can be just as horrifying as an actual collision,” Ian says.

“You see a vehicle arriving at a level crossing at speed and you wonder if it’s going to stop in time. You hope that the driver does the right thing, obeys the warning signs and waits for the train to pass before going over the level crossing.

Ian says living with the emotional pain of railway collisions is unfortunately part of the job. “Obviously no train driver wants it to happen to them during their career, and we wish that we had the power to avoid them, but we know that ultimately the final outcome of any railway crossing incident is in the hands of the motor vehicle driver.”