EXCLUSIVE

by Keyan Milanian

The dopey driver of this car will be asking Santa for a new sat nav after hers landed her in the path of a train.

The woman, believed to be in her early 20s, followed directions to turn left at the junction... onto a live railway track!

Her Renault Megane was left stuck on the rails at Cuxton station at 7.18am on Thursday - just four minutes before the next train was due.

The blunder caused commuter chaos, with trains stopped for more than an hour while Network Rail shut down power on the line and removed the car.

Commuter Ian Hutcheon, who was forced to drive into work, arrived just after the incident.

The 43-year-old surveyor, of The Glebe, Cuxton, said: "She was incredibly lucky and still clearly very shaken.

"It isn't exactly the sort of thing you expect to see when catching a train to work."

Fellow commuter Mike Sherburn, who works for Kent County Council and normally catches the 7.59am Maidstone train, said: "It was fortunate that no one was injured - apart from the woman's pride.

"I think she must have crossed at some speed because she had managed to get almost entirely over the cattle grid and onto the rails."

A Network Rail spokesman said the car was removed soon after 8.30am and there was damage to the track's cattle grid, but the line was unaffected.

He added: "Our message to anyone using a sat-nav is to be aware of the road and make sure it is a road and not a railway because the dangers are very clear."