MOTHER-of-three Kate Blye was inches from death at a Purton railway crossing on Thursday when a train whistled past – seconds after she got the all-clear to cross the line from Network Rail.

The remote pedestrian crossing connects the ends of New Road and Witts Lane in the village, where there is currently no automated system in place for safe passage.

As it stands, a Network Rail employee remains on-site from 5am until 10pm each day, and directs each person to contact a remote signalman for clearance on a telephone at the crossing.

When Kate, of New Road, made her call to cross on Thursday at 2.50pm, she was told she was clear to cross by the man on the phone.

But as she went to open the gate, the train’s horn sounded.

“I went to cross and there was someone there because the lights aren’t working and haven’t since they dualled the line,” she said.

“You have to use the phone and the person on the other end of the phone said I was safe to cross.

“But as I turned to go, I heard the train sound a horn and it passed me in, at the most, 10 seconds.

“If I had taken notice of the person on the phone, as a child probably would listening to an adult, I would have been hit by the train.

“You take the word of the person on the phone. You’d like to think they would tell you if a train was less than 10 seconds away.

“Luckily, it did hoot. If it hadn’t, I probably would have gone.”

Kate, a health and safety consultant herself, has three children, aged 10, seven and five.

She said she would not allow her children to use the crossing on their own.

Her concern is for other, older children in the village using it on a regular basis.

“You can’t see both ways at the crossing,” she said.

“You teach your children to listen to them [adults in authority] and to do what they say. I would expect them to cross when they were told it was safe.

“I have three children, and I know others who let their children cross there alone, so something needs to be done.

“I would like them [Network Rail] to put in a safe crossing really, a footbridge.

“There is a road bridge further up the line, but that has no footpath.

“It used to be that the gates sat some way back from the line and you could go inside them and look both ways. But because they have moved, if you bypass the gates you are in the danger zone.”

The Network Rail marshal at the crossing yesterday morning, who did not wish to be named, said: “I normally get 10 (people) crossing here each day – my locals, as I call them.

“The youngest is 12 or 13. He crosses in the morning on his way to school, but I have seen nothing like the complaint this woman has had.

“Normally it’s overkill on the waiting, with people being made to wait three or five minutes before they can cross.

“It’s a long time and they normally get quite impatient. They say they could’ve gone five or six times in the time they’re made to wait.

“It gets a bit awkward because some people just go. They get fed up of waiting and cross anyway. There’s nothing I can do to stop them.”

The automated lights at the crossing are expected to be back in operation on October 18.

A spokesman for Network Rail said: “We are aware of the incident and are urgently investigating how this happened.”