Executive summary
On Wednesday 14 June 2000 at about 0100, Train 630 Wellington to Napier express freight overran its track warrant limit by about 1100 m. The overrun occurred when the locomotive engineer did not identify and stop at the limit of his track warrant authority at Tapuata and continued on before coming to a stop about 100 m from No 3 FI points indicator at the south end of Dannevirke station.
Factors which may have contributed to the incident included the possibility that the locomotive engineers lost situational awareness, and the resilience of the track warrant system to accommodate deviations from established patterns.
Safety issues identified included the effectiveness of procedures in place to monitor road knowledge on infrequently travelled routes and the cancellation of this certification where this knowledge was not maintained.
One safety recommendation was made to the operator.
Related Recommendations
introduce a system to ensure road knowledge certification is for a limited, finite time and that subsequent recertification requires a defined criteria of route usage by individual LEs to remain current.