RO-1999-114

On Tuesday 22 June 1999, at about 0245 hours, the high leg rail at 93.707 km North Island Main Trunk broke under the passage of Train 225, a southbound express freight. The break caused the tenth wagon of the train to derail one axle which re-railed itself at the Roslyn Road level crossing 530 m further to the south and the locomotive engineer continued on unaware of what had happened.

A safety issue identified was the lack of an effective system for detecting and actioning rail defects located between rail ends.