Two near misses as rail safety drive begins

Two brushes with death on the country's rail network in the past few days, in Auckland and Southland, have given extra thrust to a pre-Christmas safety awareness campaign.

Police are waiting for results of drink-drive tests after finding a woman with a baby at the Mangere railway station on Thursday night, near a car which was hanging off the platform and was almost hit by a train.

This followed an incident in Southland on Wednesday, in which a vehicle licence-plate was found wedged aboard the rear locomotive of a goods train.

The plate was traced to a truck which police inquiries revealed had been clipped by the train at a level-crossing in Balclutha, although without harming the road vehicle's driver.

Toll Rail spokeswoman Sue Foley said the train driver did not notice the collision, which came to light only when a colleague about to relieve him down the line noticed the licence-plate.

The Auckland incident blocked the mail-trunk railway line until a crane could lift the over-hanging car from the platform.

Ms Foley said a goods train almost hit the car, but emergency brakes were used to stop it within metres of an impact.

Inspector Darroch Todd of the police northern communications centre said the woman found nearby with a baby identified herself as the Mitsubishi V3000 car's driver, claiming to have become lost before getting stuck on the platform.

The two incidents occurred as Toll and Government rail corridor owner Ontrack prepared to launch a two-week safety awareness campaign yesterday to make people more aware of the dangers of their network and level crossings.

Although the campaign is aimed primarily at provincial New Zealand, where most rail deaths occur, Aucklanders should also heed its message because of a planned increase in suburban passengers services by Connex in coming weeks.

Ms Foley said there were usually more rail incidents in the months leading to Christmas on a network which was becoming busier in any case, particularly in the Waikato with its increasing coal and dairy freight movements.

The safety campaign includes advertisements backing the message that "tracks are for trains" with images of wheelchair transport for those who ignore the danger and of a jogger thinking of crossing the Ngaruawahia rail bridge, where a young boy was killed several years ago.

Ms Foley said engine drivers usually had no way to prevent a collision with trespassers on the tracks, as it could take up to 1500 metres to pull up a fully-laden train.