Train drivers share grim tales

The wait is the worst part – the grim minutes that can last an hour between a train hitting a car and emergency services arriving.

For train driver Robert Neale, it has happened three times. That is three times he has been unable to stop his train before a fatal collision with a car at a level crossing.

Rail Safety Week kicked off yesterday with a strong focus on drivers’ behaviour at level crossings.

So far this year there have been 15 collisions between trains and vehicles at level crossings, with five deaths in four separate incidents.

‘‘The train always wins,’’ Neale said.

The three crashes he has been involved with in his nine years on the job all happened around the Auckland region.

After each hit, he made sure the train was not going to move, notified emergency services, then faced the dreaded walk back along the tracks to see if there was a survivor to help.

Then – if it was fatal – was the wait, which could last an hour, in an out-of-the way place, for help to arrive. That was the worst part, he said.

The last time he hit and killed someone was in 2009. That time he had a trainee driver in the cab.

The emotional impact had, so far, been OK for him but, when he got home and told his wife of the most recent death, she broke down in tears.

There was also the impact on colleagues and friends, not to mention the victims’ friends and families.

KiwiRail freight operations manager Allan Wight still remembers, when he was a driver, seeing what he thought was a ‘‘piece of rubbish or tarpaulin’’ on the tracks in Taranaki.

It was far too late to stop when he realised it was a person.

These days, in his managerial role, he regularly attends crash scenes, in many of which car drivers have ignored warnings. ‘‘I have seen some horrific, horrific scenes.’’

For Rail Safety Week, KiwiRail has installed virtual reality trains where people can feel what it is like to drive a train dealing with cars and pedestrians.

The simulator was tested yesterday morning by Associate Transport Minister Michael Woodhouse and Upper Hutt Plateau School pupil Toby Rudman, 9, who did not crash and in his short stint spotted four hazards – two cars, a pedestrian, and a person wanting to cross the tracks.