A JUDGE has urged railway bosses to take urgent action at a level crossing after a train with 69 people on board crashed into a tractor at 65mph.

Judge Paul Batty said the incident at the Oakwood Farm crossing of the Harrogate to York line, at Flaxby, in May last year, was “an accident waiting to happen”.

He was sentencing Andrew Doney, 22, of Moorside Drive, Ripon, who admitted endangering the safety of rail users by driving a tractor across the crossing as the train approached.

Laurie Scott, prosecuting, said the Northern Rail train driver sounded his horn as the tractor crossed the tracks and braked, but was unable to prevent the tractor being sliced in two and the train being withdrawn from service. Only the driver, who suffered back injuries and psychological effects, was injured.

Judge Batty heard rail authorities had been pressed to improve safety there for 40 years and the crossing gates could still be opened as trains approached.

He told the forestry worker: “The greater responsibility for this accident lies elsewhere rather than with you. I am further satisfied from what I have heard in this court that the rail operators really must as a matter of extreme urgency attend to the concerns that have been raised. Plainly, there could have been carnage had the train been derailed.”

He ordered Doney, who said he had made an error of judgement, to do 150 hours’ unpaid work.

A Network Rail spokesman said it had worked to improve the crossing.