{"id":974268,"date":"2026-05-20T23:23:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T23:23:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/974268\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T23:23:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T23:23:19","slug":"edinburgh-local-tells-of-moment-he-witnessed-lorry-collide-with-bridge-on-busy-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/974268\/","title":{"rendered":"Edinburgh local tells of moment he witnessed lorry collide with bridge on busy road"},"content":{"rendered":"

The incident also sparked rush-hour travel chaos.<\/p>\n

18:58, 20 May 2026Updated 20:44, 20 May 2026<\/p>\n

\"Inspections<\/p>\n

Inspections were carried out for structural damage.(Image: Edinburgh Live)<\/p>\n

An Edinburgh local has told of witnessing the heart-stopping moment a lorry struck a bridge<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ian Henderson lives close to the scene of the incident on Balgreen Road, but was driving his car, which was behind the lorry when it collided with the railway bridge at around 4pm on Wednesday, May 20. He watched as firefighters and rail engineers worked on freeing the stricken vehicle<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Emergency services<\/a> and Network Rail were scrambled to the bridge, which carries several of the main lines in and out of the city, to assess the damage.<\/p>\n

Police closed the road in both directions, resulting in heavy traffic and travel delays on surrounding roads. Train services were also cancelled, delayed or revised, and Lothian Buses’ service 38 was diverted.<\/p>\n

Ian told Edinburgh Live: “I was right behind the lorry when it got stuck. I think the driver was trying to be smart and beat the rush-hour traffic by going this way after coming off the West Approach Road.<\/p>\n

“But now it’s been stuck for about two hours. It looks like they might need to deflate the tyres, then get some kind of heavy vehicle to push it out.”<\/p>\n

At around 5.30pm, there were still a number of emergency responders on scene, as attempts were made to move the lorry, but seemingly to no avail.<\/p>\n

Rail services also resumed around this time after engineers inspected the bridge. However, passengers faced huge queues at Waverley and Haymarket stations as crowds of people waited on trains running again.<\/p>\n

\"Crowds<\/p>\n

Crowds waiting at Haymarket for a train to Glasgow following the disruption.(Image: Supplied)<\/p>\n

An update from ScotRail read: “Engineers have now examined the bridge and have confirmed it’s safe for trains to run.<\/p>\n

“We are working to hard to get trains and crew back into position. Delays, alterations and cancellations may still occur, please check your journey before travelling.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The incident also sparked rush-hour travel chaos. 18:58, 20 May 2026Updated 20:44, 20 May 2026 Inspections were carried…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":974269,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,1102,4884,530,712,23477,119809,760,16,15],"class_list":["post-974268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edinburgh","tag-britain","tag-edinburgh","tag-great-britain","tag-police-scotland","tag-scotland","tag-scotrail","tag-scottish-fire-and-rescue","tag-traffic-and-travel","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116609484249255846","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=974268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/974269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=974268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=974268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=974268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}