A HORRIFIED motorist has told how he was given the go-ahead to drive through a railway crossing when the barriers were down -- even though he thought a train might be coming.

Tom Griffiths, 59, of Larkfield, Eccleston, was on his way to Aughton when he came to a level crossing near Burscough. He said: "It was near Hoscar Moss railway station and as I approached, the barriers came down. There was a car in front of me and we waited five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes -- and nothing happened.

"Next thing, the girl behind me got out of her car and went to the emergency phone. She got back in her car and another girl came up and said she'd been told to stand on the crossing and wave the cars through."

To his amazement, he said the woman did exactly that.

"I was going to turn around and go back," he said: "but I couldn't because of all the traffic. I was terrified."

Railtrack plc confirmed that the incident on November 10 had taken place, but denied the public would have been asked to stand on the track. "There was a fault at the Hoscar Moss barriers," said a spokesman. "There had been salt contamination of the works, possibly from road gritters. It's likely that whoever was using the telephone would go through to the signal box at Burscough Junction and they would have given them permission to cross."

But she said there was 'no way' anybody would have been put at risk. "They certainly would not have been told to stand on the track," she said.

This is not the first time Mr Griffiths has had bad experience on that particular crossing. He said that two years ago, he crossed the track there only to look back in his mirror and see a train pass -- while the barriers were still up!

He said he used the trackside telephone to report the matter at the time but was told in no uncertain terms that there were no trains at that time in the morning, and he must have been mistaken.

The spokesperson for Railtrack said: "We do keep records and we have a control log that tells us what happened every day. But unless we knew the week it had happened, we would not be able to look back."

Mr Griffiths has written to Railtrack plc about the recent incident, and has received a reply telling him the matter is being looked into. "I don't go that way any more," he said. RAIL scare: Tom Griffiths at the crossing as a train speeds past