Call for better alerts after train doors left open

MORE clear-cut driver alert systems have been urged after 12 passengers were forced to ride with multiple carriage doors left open on a service between Wellington and Upper Hutt.

On March 28 last year, a six-car Tranz Metro Ganz Mavag electric train was running five minutes late on an evening peak service between Wellington and Taita, carrying 329 passengers and four crew.

It was driven by a trainee driver doing on-the-job training, overseen by a minder driver.

A newly released Transport Accident Investigation Commission (TAIC) report reveals the train stopped at Wingate station, where passengers got off and a train manager and her assistant stood on the platform conducting passengers.

When the passengers were clear, the assistant was about to reboard the fourth car.

At the same time, the train manager reached through the third car’s door, about to close the passenger doors, when the train began to move.

Both stepped back and were left standing on the platform, with no radio to contact the trainee driver.

Normally the train manager would have pressed an all-clear button once the passenger doors had closed.

This would have sounded a buzzer and flashed up a white light on the driver’s control panel.

But the trainee driver did not notice the white ‘‘all-doors-closed’’ light was not lit up.

The short trip to Taita was made with all 12 passenger doors on the eastern side open, with no passenger staff on board.

There were no injuries and no damage to the train.

The report recommended a return to a conventional green/red lighting system for driver alerts, rather than the white light that may have escaped the trainee driver’s notice.

Investigators found the door-status light system design meant the light was usually out when the doors were open, even while the train was moving.

However, the commission accepted Greater Wellington Regional Council’s submission that it would not modify the light system on the Ganz Mavags, which are being retired by April.

The train manager could have alerted the trainee if Tranz Metro allowed her to carry a radio, the report found.

To discourage unnecessary ‘‘radio chatter’’, Tranz Metro’s policy is for train managers not to have portable radios, which are instead permanently installed in the driver’s cab.

The report recommended those radios would be more useful if carried by train managers, allowing them to talk to drivers during an emergency.

The minder driver and trainee tested negative for drug and alcohol use.