Near miss at Helpston level crossing near Peterborough

A Rail Accident Investigation Branch report has published into the incident which took place in Helpston, near Peterborough, on October 21, 2025.

The report states that during the incident, the signaller on duty at Helpston used the "raise barriers" control for the level crossing, having "forgotten" that a freight train was approaching.

The barriers were then fully raised, and the wig-wage traffic lights were extinguished while the train was still on the crossing.

The signaller realised what had happened and used the "lower barriers" control to bring them back down.

"One of the waiting car drivers started to move their vehicle towards the crossing after the barriers started to rise", the report reads.

"There is conflicting evidence about how far the car moved."

The train driver did not report seeing any road vehicles enter the crossing as the train approached, and no vehicles were struck by the train.

There were no injuries or damages to any vehicles.

On the day of the incident, there were three trains due to pass through Helpston - two on the fast line and one (the freight train) on the Stamford line.

The two trains on the fast line had passed, and the signaller looked out of their window to check if any further trains were approaching on that line.

They did not check the Stamford line that the freight train was travelling on.

As a result the signaller attempted to raise the barriers, but the system prevented this as it detected the approaching freight train.

The signaller believed there may have been a fault, due to recent barrier failures, and used the sealed release plunger to manually raise the barriers.

The signaller then looked to their left, saw the oncoming train, and immediately activated the control to lower the barriers.

The report found that a Local Operations Manager was present in the signal box at the time of the incident, and that this "may have distracted" the signaller.

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