YORK'S top judge has warned people could have been killed in a recent train crash and urged Network Rail to improve safety.

The Recorder of York Judge Paul Batty QC heard that nothing had been done to protect rail passengers or farm workers since a Harrogate to York service with 66 passengers and three train crew on board crashed at about 65 mph into a tractor at the Oakwood Farm crossing near Flaxby 19 months ago.

He also heard that there had been other accidents at the crossing involving trains and that two generations of the Webster family which owns Oakwood Farm had been urging the rail authorities for 40 years to get it made safe without success.

The crossing gates can still be opened as a train approaches and the warning lights are too small, despite the official investigation into the latest crash recommending that they be changed eight months ago, York Crown Court heard.

“I am quite satisfied, sadly, that this was an accident waiting to happen,” the judge said.

“I am further satisfied from what I have heard in this court this morning that the rail operators really must as a matter of extreme urgency attend to the concerns that have been raised, not only from the landowner but from the rail accident investigator’s report in respect of this collision.

“It is a mercy that no-one was seriously injured or killed. Plainly there could have been carnage had the train been derailed.”

He was sentencing Andrew Doney, 22, of Moorside Drive, Ripon, who admitted endangering the safety of rail users by driving a tractor across the crossing as the train approached.

“It would be an affront to justice if I was to deprive you of your liberty,” he told the forestry worker. “The greater responsibility for this accident lies elsewhere rather than with you.”

He ordered him to do 150 hours’ unpaid work and pay £300 prosecution costs.

For Doney, Andrew Nuttall said it was only the second time he had used the crossing and he had made an error of judgement.

Outside court, Timothy Webster, who owns the farm spoke of his decades-long frustration with Network Rail and that he only got promises not action. “Everything is money with them,” he said. “I have got no explanation.”

James Perkins, route level crossing manager for Network Rail, said: “Since the incident and following the Rail Accident Investigation Branch report into it, we have worked with the Office of Road and Rail as well as the authorised user at Oakwood Farm on improving the level crossing. We also welcome the guilty plea which meant that this case did not need to go to trial.”

Laurie Scott, prosecuting for British Transport Police, said Doney operated the button to open the gates at 6.15pm on May 14, 2015, although a train was approaching.

The train driver sounded his horn as he saw the tractor heading across the tracks in front of him and applied his emergency brakes, but was unable to prevent the crash.

No-one on the train was injured, but the driver suffered whiplash and back injuries and psychological effects including frequent flashbacks, and was off work for five and a half months.

In a victim impact statement he said the first time he drove a train past the crossing was “horrific” and he continues to suffer psychologically and emotionally.

The crash closed the nearby A59 for an hour and buses replaced trains on the line until the wreckage could be removed. The tractor was sliced in two and the train had to be withdrawn from service.

It cost Northern Rail £114,000 and Network Rail £3,660.