A City of London Water Operations vehicle hit part of the notorious Talbot Street rail bridge on Tuesday morning. The hydraulic arm on top of the truck hit one of the metal safety barriers indicating the maximum height for traffic passing though. The incident happened around 9:30 a.m. Barriers on the north and south side of the rail bridge indicate a clearance of 3.3 metres. The northbound truck cleared the first barrier, made it under the bridge but hit the second safety barrier as it was coming out the side. Complicating matters was the release of hydraulic fluid. Cars passing through tracked the fluid north onto Oxford Street and south along Talbot Street. The fluid can make roads slick, so bags of absorbent material had to be dumped on the road surfaces and street cleaners were brought in to pull the material up Talbot had to be shut down in both directions from Oxford Street to Piccadilly Street. Eastbound Oxford was reduced to one lane to allow emergency responders and cleanup crews to work. There were no injuries reported from of the incident.
