Woman killed on Featherston crossing

A woman killed in a level crossing collision near Featherston yesterday was seen waving other motorists over the lines before stopping on the tracks moments before impact.
Emergency traffic controllers said last night police were treating the site as a crime scene and cars and foot traffic were kept back about 200m from the area.
Masterton police Senior Sergeant Warwick Burr said police were called shortly before 7pm to the Western Lake Road site, known as Speedy's Crossing, about 3km south of the Featherston rail station.
The woman was the sole occupant in a Toyota Corsa car that collided with the 5.33pm passenger train travelling from Wellington to Masterton with 190 passengers aboard at the time, he said.
Police are still investigating the collision and were last night yet to notify the family of the dead woman.
There were no other injuries reported and seven buses were used to ferry stranded passengers to their destinations after they had walked from the train to the roadway through the Featherston Cemetery.
Shawn Camp, Wairarapa Ambulance Services operations manager, said an ambulance was despatched to the crash site but the woman believed to be in her 30s, died at the scene.
The Wairarapa Times-Age was told that witnesses had seen the woman waving other motorists through the crossing shortly before the collision.
She had waited at the crossing before appearing to drive on to the tracks and stopping the car in the path of the oncoming train, witnesses said.
Train passenger Mike McDonald said he was seated in the second carriage back from the locomotive as it rounded an S-curve immediately before the crash site and saw the Toyota vehicle "waiting at the crossing".
"Then it looked like it started to move but only got halfway across the tracks. The train hit the car toward the back on the passenger's side and it went straight up about 2m off the ground and did a 360 spin in the air," he said.
Featherston Fire Chief Colin McKenna said he arrived first at the scene with a firefighting crew and that the car had been thrown about 15m on to trackside grass during the collision.
""It was one of those horrific scenes where the car is just sitting there on the side of the tracks there was nothing we could do for the driver."
Mr McKenna said firefighters spent about 2? hours clearing the site and had set up a cordon to keep the area clear.
There were no barrier arms, lights or bells at the crossing and the view is unobstructed both north and south of the area.
Ontrack spokesman Kevin Ramshaw said last night that there were stop signs at the crossing and that services were expected to return to normal this morning. Tranz Metro spokeswoman Lisa Gibbison said buses were organised within 20 minutes of the collision to take passengers from the scene.
She said the 6.18pm train from Wellington to Masterton had been delayed by the collision and about 70 passengers were also taken by bus to Wairarapa destinations.
She said the driver of the train involved in the collision was "quite shaken".