End-of-the-line call upsets railway crew
Kapiti Coast’s miniature railway has been closed down amid safety concerns, right in the middle of its busiest season.
WorkSafe New Zealand said this week that the Kapiti Miniature Railway at Raumati Beach would stay shut until passenger safety concerns were allayed.
But organisers for the not-forprofit attraction have called the timing of the decision cynical and said it had left members ‘‘surprised and dismayed’’.
WorkSafe chief investigations inspector Alan Cooper said an investigation began after a family was tipped from the train as it rounded a curve in September. Nobody was seriously injured.
‘‘This is a community attraction, and closing it down at holiday time was not a decision we took lightly, but I could not look a parent in the eye if another incident occurred and a child was injured,’’ he said.
The railway was closed briefly in 2008 after another accident.
Mr Cooper said that, since then, the operators had failed to properly maintain its registration.
The report raised safety concerns about the railway’s narrow gauge, the ‘‘fundamental instability of the straddle carriages’’ and its design, which made it prone to tip at speeds or in the wind.
But Graeme Brown, a member of the Kapiti Miniature Railway & Model Engineering Society’s committee, said the train carried thousands of passengers safely each year and the decision was a ‘‘gross overreaction’’.