Shortly before midnight on Monday, the Rhätische Railway train driver noticed a wild animal on the tracks just before Ftan-Baraigla station. Although he slowed to 30 kilometres an hour, he failed to avoid a collission with the bear, newspaper Blick reported.

The driver immediately called the incident in, and because to the GPS system that was recently fitted to the bear, it soon became clear that Switzerland’s celebrity bear known as M13 was the animal in question.

“We did not find blood on the ground, but he will have been bruised and we expect that he may be in pain,” wildlife biologist Hannes Jenny told newspaper 20 Minuten.

Specialists tracked the bear down on Tuesday and, although they said M13 did not look as they he had sustained any major injuries, he did seem to be in some pain when he moved, Blick reported.

Experts will be monitoring the bear particularly closely as it is thought that an incident such as this may cause the bear to become less shy and more dangerous to humans.