Alarms bells at crash threat

Safety improvements needed at Wellington Railway Station, a report has found

Urgent safety improvements are needed at Wellington Railway Station, the Transport Accident Investigation Commission says, after an inexperienced train driver narrowly avoided a collision with an oncoming train last year.

The near-miss followed another in 2016, while there had also been 23 incidents of trains failing to stop for a red light when approaching or departing Wellington station in the past decade, the commission said in a report published yesterday.

‘‘Drivers must prioritise their focus on the most important issues at any one time,’’ it concluded. ‘‘Key areas of the Wellington rail network pose a higher risk than others and therefore require more caution and concentration from train drivers.’’

An outbound Melling train entered a section of track already occupied by an inbound Waikanae train on November 6 last year, after the Melling-bound driver was distracted by a radio call, causing the driver to miss a red light and proceed towards the oncoming train. Both train drivers realised they were on a collision course and stopped with less than 32 metres to spare.

No-one was hurt, but the mistake caused major delays and shocked passengers.

The commission said KiwiRail had also failed to act on all the recommendations made three years ago, after the 2016 incident, to reduce the risk of collision in the congested approach to Wellington station after a similar incident, and this contributed to the latest near collision. While KiwiRail had installed automatic brakes on some red light signals around the station, as previously recommended, it had not done so on the red light where the driver failed to stop. The risk of collision would remain ‘‘high’’ until further improvements were made, the commission said.

The report also revealed that in January 2019, Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency became so concerned about the risk of collision that it told KiwiRail and train operator Transdev that no more services in and out of Wellington station could be added at peak times without extra safety sign-off.

The report stated Wellington’s tracks remained congested, which increased the risk of a collision.

It also noted the driver of the departing train was relatively inexperienced, with a little over three weeks of solo driving under their belt. The driver had recently completed an eight-month-long commuter train driving course.

Safety measures in place were not enough to reduce the risk of a collision as far as reasonably possible.

After the 2016 near-miss, which

A near-collision between two passenger trains at Wellington station in November 2019 was found to have been caused when a driver was distracted by a radio call, resulting in a red light being run.

identified there was nothing to stop a train passing the red-stop signal should a driver fail to react correctly, the commission recommended KiwiRail do whatever it could to ‘‘reduce the risk of train operations in the area until a more suitable longer-term solution can be made’’. That recommendation still stood as there were still no engineering controls in place to prevent a collision if a train passed the signal, it said.

Rail and Maritime Transport Union general secretary Wayne Butson supported the 2017 recommendations and called for KiwiRail to install train stops at the signals to activate the train’s brakes in such situations.

KiwiRail chief operating officer Todd Moyle said the stateowned enterprise accepted the incident was significant.

‘‘It highlights the difficulties we face in the Wellington station area. It contains a large number of signals in a constricted space and is also used by all commuter trains operating on the Wellington rail network,’’ he said. ‘‘The operation of trains in this area is safe, but we are taking steps to further lower risk.’’