‘It’s a circus’: The saga of Hastings’ misfiring railway barrier arms

Two men lift a railway barrier arm to let traffic through at a CBD crossing in Hastings this week. Photo / Warren Buckland

The saga of Hastings’ misfiring railway barrier arms has turned into a “circus”, says a business manager who’s watched the chaos unfold beside a central city crossing.

KiwiRail has this week been telling drivers and pedestrians in Hastings to “look both ways” before crossing any rail tracks, due to the unreliability of its lights and arms on 10 level crossings through the city.

Trains are running regularly from Waipawa to Hastings, with the rail lines re-opened following cyclone damage.

But an “ongoing” power supply issue has created the worst of all worlds for motorists in recent days. KiwiRail said it was working on a solution and expected it would be fixed by Thursday night.

On Monday’s school run, for at least the second time in a month, barrier arms had to be hoisted up by members of the public, or driven around with police permission.

The barriers came down automatically because of a power surge, which is a “failsafe” to prevent danger to motorists, a KiwiRail spokesperson said.

KiwiRail quickly clarified there were no trains planned for the rest of the day, averting chaos and allowing the traffic to flow.

A KiwiRail worker then ran down the railway line, switching the barriers one by one to manual mode.

On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, motorists and pedestrians were then confronted by trains coming through the Hastings crossings without lights flashing or barrier arms coming down.

Witnesses told Hawke’s Bay Today train drivers were blaring their horns and crawling through the city to ensure they could be seen and heard.

KiwiRail executive general manager of operations Paul Ashton said due to the ongoing issues with the power supply, a 10-kilometre speed limit had been enforced on all trains passing through the affected level crossings.

“Staff are working to resolve this issue as soon as possible.

“We ask that all vehicles and pedestrians passing through level crossings take extra precaution and look both ways before doing so.”

The Naked Jeweller director Kem McLean, whose business overlooks the Eastbourne St crossing, said the crossing had become a “bit of a circus” in recent times.

“In the past month, we’re getting barrier arms coming down and there is no train coming, then they come up and there is a train coming.

“It’s a really serious health and safety risk.”

McLean said KiwiRail’s advice to motorists to look both ways in the short-term might have sounded reasonable, but it wasn’t feasible on the rail corridor through the city.

“The line of sight for motorists at our crossing is really limited - there are buildings everywhere, there is a lot of shrubbery, and it’s actually not realistic for people to be able to look both ways.”

He said when trains passed through without the lights flashing, there had been motorists parked mere metres from the line.

Given that schoolchildren crossed the lines regularly, it had been fortunate there had been no incident, he said.

The future of heavy rail through the centre of Hastings has been a flashpoint of discussion in the past - there have been calls to re-route it alongside the Hawke’s Bay Expressway.

McLean said he was comfortable with trains travelling through the middle of town as they serviced the city’s businesses, but the infrastructure around them needed to work.

“The main thing KiwiRail needs to focus on is fixing the reliability of the crossings. It’s a bit of a joke, really.”