Saved by a Whale's Tale: Tram runs off track, lands on whale statue's tail in the Netherlands

On Monday, an elevated tram outran its tracks in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

It did not plunge off the pathway, but instead ended up on top of a statue of a whale’s tail. If it had outrun the track, the train would went down by 10 metres. The conductor showed up from the tram shocked, but still unharmed. Additionally, there were no passengers onboard the train.

A general view of a metro that crashed through a stop block and landed on an artwork of a whale tail at De Akkers subway station in Spijkenisse, near Roterdam, Netherlands November 2, 2020 | Reuters

The statue’s name is coincidentally "Saved by a Whale's Tale", but its curators didn’t have saving a train in mind when they came up with the concept.

"Of course it does look rather poetic," artist and architect Maarten Struijs said in conversation with the Algemeen Dagblad newspaper. 

A general view of a metro that crashed through a stop block and landed on an artwork of a whale tail at De Akkers subway station in Spijkenisse, near Roterdam, Netherlands November 2, 2020 | Reuters

"But it's really lucky that the tail can bear the weight of the train”, the artist added.

Passers-by noticed the tram suspended on top of the statue. Many on social media suggested the train to be permanently stationed on the spot. Rotterdam Metro and local officials claimed that it wouldn’t be safe.

Currently, engineers are trying to understand how the tram derailed, and how to safely remove it from the statue.