Executive summary
On Friday 1 April 2005, Train 2100 was a scheduled empty passenger service being positioned to Waitakere to start passenger operations for the day. At 0627, soon after the train had passed through Ranui station, the coupling between the locomotive and the guard’s van parted. As a result of the parting, the automatic brake system lost all air pressure and brought the train to a stop.
Two cable connections were severed and loose wiring short-circuited the electrical door control trainline, resulting in the doors on the passenger cars opening and closing while the train was coming to a stop.
The safety issues identified included:
• the door opening/closing circuitry
• the return of a rail vehicle to passenger train service with out-of-code drawgear height.
One safety recommendation has been made to the Chief Executive of Toll NZ Consolidated Limited to address these issues.
Related Recommendations
with the trend towards fixed passenger train consists, investigate compliance with, and the robustness of, present procedures for the checking of coupled drawgear heights with a view to reinforcing existing procedures, and if need be, introducing additional or changed processes to further reduce the likelihood of passenger carrying vehicles operating in service with an out-of-code drawbar height.