This is the frightening moment a pick-up truck ignored warning signals and drove straight into the path of an Inverness-bound train.
The video – which The Press and Journal exclusively obtained from the Crown Office – shows Ivan Nicol passing through the crossing gates and colliding with the two-carriage train from Elgin.
The train’s driver, Pauline Smith, said she was travelling at around 68mph when she spotted Nicol’s pick-up truck emerging onto the track at the Lower Cullernie crossing, near Allanfearn.
The shocking footage, which was taken from the train cab, shows Ms Smith had less than two seconds to react before the impact.
Miraculously, no one was injured in the resulting crash on January 31 last year.
Nicol, of Drumduan Park, Forres, was found guilty of dangerous driving after a trial at Inverness Sheriff Court and he was fined £1,040. He was also banned from driving for a year, after which he must sit and pass an extended driving test.
In evidence led by fiscal depute Eilidh Gunn, Ms Smith said: “I was worried we were going to end up derailing”.
She said: “Everything seemed clear, it wasn’t until I was just about on the crossing that the car came out.”
Ms Smith described how Nicol’s vehicle “just drove straight out” into her path at the user-operated crossing.
She said: “I threw the brake on into emergency and I was trying to get to the horn.
“I went for the emergency button, I was worried we were going to end up derailing.
“It felt like a it was a couple of seconds between hitting the brake and hitting the car.”
Safety protocols for train drivers states they should leave the cab before impact, but Ms Smith said: “There was no time.”
Finding Nicol guilty of dangerous driving, Sheriff Eilidh MacDonald said: “You drove your car over a railway track just as a train was coming.
“That is a very clear example of what it is to drive dangerously.”