Girl, 11, ‘could have survived’
Juanita Lines is haunted by the sound of trains trundling past her house.
It’s where her 11-year-old daughter was killed after being struck by a Kiwirail freight train as she tried to run off the rail bridge in Ngāruawāhia.
And if the oncoming train had been slower, Moareen Rameka might have had time to get off the tracks, Coroner Gordon Matenga said in Hamilton’s Coroner’s Court on Wednesday. Moareen had been playing on the train tracks for about an hour with a friend in March.
Her younger friend – slightly ahead of her – was able to jump to safety. But Moareen couldn’t and died at the scene. Matenga has reserved his inquest findings. He wants a response from KiwiRail around whether train’s speed can be lowered to 50 kmh through Ngāruawāhia township to prevent such incidents in the future.
In court, Matenga said many children knew they shouldn’t be playing on the tracks ‘‘and yet they do it anyway because it just looks interesting and fun’’.
‘‘Giving them just a few extra seconds may have made a difference.’’
Train drivers are required to slow down to 60 kmh due to the corner near the Waingaro Rd intersection, but Moareen’s mother, Lines, hopes it’s dropped to 40 kmh.
‘‘If that train would have slowed down, she would have made it,’’ Lines said on Wednesday as she stood next to Moareen’s memorial at the tracks.
‘‘She might have ended up with a broken arm or broken leg down there,’’ Lines said. ‘‘But she’d still be here. I think that’s the hardest.’’
The train drivers – who saw the girls – had applied the emergency brakes, emergency call button, activated alerting train control and sounded the whistle continuously.
Rangita Wilson, a witness, had been jogging when she saw a train heading towards two girls.
Wilson yelled ‘‘run baby, run’’ as Moareen ran to get off the tracks in time, she told the coroner.
‘‘The train caught up to the girl and I knew something bad had happened.’’
Lines doesn’t blame the drivers.
‘‘[Moareen] shouldn’t have been up there, but she saw her friends up there.’’
If Lines sees children playing there now, she predicts she will ‘‘go crazy at them’’.
But primary school children are playful and the trains go too fast, she said.
In her police summary, Senior Constable Lisa Herewini said the primary schooler – who lived with her grandmother – was a happy healthy girl.
Lines described Moareen – one of 12 children and the youngest girl – as kind, cheeky and ‘‘bubbly as’’.
Her whanau visit the memorial next to the tracks on the 18th of every month – the anniversary of her death on March 18.
Photographs, loving messages, flowers and trinkets are crammed into the railing.
‘‘She loved troubled children. She would sit with them, help them, play with them.
‘‘Her wairua was big.’’