The idea of coming face to face with a train is extremely frightening, especially under certain circumstances where there’s very little room to maneuver, like say inside a narrow tunnel.
Yet, that’s exactly what happened to a cyclist in Brazil, who was out with a friend riding from Volta Redonda to Porto Real, a distance of roughly 39 km (24 miles). The two however decided to take a new route, something they would later regret.
At one point, they came across a relatively short train tunnel, and before they even had time to decide whether to go inside or not, a train passed, which in turn made the two adventurers think that another one was unlikely to come hot on its heels.
That’s pretty much when things went horribly wrong. Here’s the entire ordeal in the words of the cyclist:
“We began what would be a short stretch but tense, and before we reached the middle of the tunnel, we heard the sound of the train coming towards us. I called to my friend and started to run without being able to look behind, with that honking train. It was a feeling of panic and a lot of fear. After the fright, we continued to travel safely and with the feeling of being born again.”
Taking the tunnel in the first place was probably not the smartest idea. It was an unnecessary risk and it could have ended tragically.
As for how close of a call this was, only 2 seconds passed between the moment the cyclist ran past the tunnel entrance and the moment the train came out. That was a very lucky escape indeed…