A lorry driver had a load on his mind yesterday morning after the roof off his trailer got stuck under a rail bridge in Inverness – causing traffic chaos across the city.
The HGV – owned by PJH Group Ltd – was travelling along Shore Street towards one of the city’s busiest roundabouts when he misjudged the height of his load, wedging himself underneath the bridge shortly after 9am.
The entire roof of the lorry was ripped to shreds, causing what engineers believed to be ‘superficial damage’ to the city centre bridge.
The lorry left the entire side of the road blocked to traffic for around sic hours, leading to lengthy tail backs in both directions and bringing rush hour traffic to a standstill.
A spokeswoman for PJH Group said: “We are not making comment at this time.”
Police were called to the scene following the incident to help control traffic flow, as engineers battled to remove the damaged vehicle from under the bridge.
A police spokesman said: “The call came into us at 9.05am reporting a lorry had collided with the railway bridge. There were no injuries and Network Rail have been made aware.”
Engineers were sent to the scene to inspect the damage.
Scotrail services continued to run as engineers said only minor damage had been made to the structure, however a number of services to and from Wick were delayed as a result of the collision; with Georgemas Junction and Thurso not being serviced on two occasions.
A spokesman from Network Rail said: “The bridge is only superficially damaged so we are still running trains over it.”
The vehicle was eventually removed from the site around 3pm.