A Dutch metro train was saved on Monday when it slammed into a safety barrier but was prevented from plummeting into water by a sculpture of a whale tail at Spijkenisse, near the port city of Rotterdam. The front carriage was left hanging 10 meters above the water. Photo: AFP

A runaway Dutch metro train was saved from disaster on Monday after it smashed through a stop barrier but then came to rest on a giant sculpture of a whale's tail.

Instead of crashing into the water 10 meters below, the front carriage ended up suspended dramatically in the air, propped up only by the silver cetacean.

The driver of the train, which had no passengers on board, was unharmed in the fluke incident which happened after midnight at Spijkenisse, near the port city of Rotterdam.

In a twist of fate, the fortuitously positioned artwork is called "Saved by the Whale's Tail."

"This is such a weird scenario," Carly Gorter of the Rijnmond regional safety authority told AFP. 

"The metro went off the rails and it landed on a monument called 'Saved by the Whale's Tail.' So that literally happened."

The driver was later held for questioning, the safety authority said. The cause of the crash was still being investigated.

AFP