Road and rail commuters faced severe disruption last night after an accident at a notorious traffic bottleneck in Aberdeenshire.
It happened just before 5.30pm when a tractor slipped off the trailer of a heavy goods vehicle at Inveramsay Bridge, on the A96 Aberdeen to Inverness road, between Inverurie and Huntly.
In the immediate aftermath of the incident, traffic ground to a halt in both directions as the narrow opening underneath the railway bridge was blocked.
Trains on the railway line over the bridge were halted due to safety fears as it emerged the tractor had collided with the bridge.
Police were able to move the tractor, which had landed on its wheels, to create a gap for traffic to slowly filter through.
By this time traffic stretched back several miles and it was almost an hour before the road returned to normal.
Meanwhile, rail passengers were stuck on trains as the entire Aberdeen to Inverness line was closed.
A spokesman for Network Rail said: “We were alerted that a vehicle had misjudged the layout of the road and the bridge had been struck.
“Engineers attended at 6.45pm, said it was safe, and our normal timetable resumed, albeit with knock-on delays.”
Traffic flow on the road also returned to normal, as the backlog cleared, around the same time.