One person died Friday and more than a dozen were injured after separate collisions between trains and vehicles at two railway crossings in northern Germany, dpa quoted police as saying. The fatality occurred between the cities of Hanover and Hamburg when a locomotive hit a passenger vehicle that had driven onto the tracks. The train dragged the vehicle more than 70 metres down the track. The driver of the car was taken by helicopter to Hamburg, where he died from his injuries. Two hours earlier a truck-driver was treated for shock and 12 passengers sustained light injuries when a regional train hit a standing goods vehicle near the city of Braunschweig. The front section of the two-carriage train, which had been carrying some 50 passengers, derailed. Experts are now investigating how the two vehicles came to be on the tracks, as the crossings were secured with barriers and alarm signals.
