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  • Derailed train carriage dragged 3.4km

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Discussion about railroad topics everywhere outside of Canada and the United States.

Moderators: Komachi, David Benton

 #181973  by David Benton
 
03.11.05 4.00pm


A derailed freight carriage that caused transport disruptions north of Wellington this week was dragged more than 3km before stopping, initial investigations indicate.

The incident happened on Sunday evening near Pukerua Bay, causing significant damage to the railway track and tunnels and taking until Tuesday to repair.

The Transport Accident Investigation Commission (Taic) has opened an investigation into the incident and said information reported to date showed a carriage was dragged 3.4km.

The service between Palmerston North and Wellington was affected all day Monday with up to 3000 commuters having to be transferred by bus.

In Auckland, Taic is investigating an incident on Monday where a train passenger received a minor injury after his ankle was caught in a closing door.

The train's operators said they had had difficulties with the door controls on a service between Britomart and Papakura.

In Dunedin last Friday two train carriages on a tourist train came apart during the approach to Dunedin station. Both sections were brought to a stop when the emergency braking system was activated.

In an incident two days earlier in Waikato, a train drove through a cordoned-off track-work area when points to a siding could not be activated.

Apart from the ankle incident there were no injuries in any of the incidents. All are being investigated further by Taic.

- NZPA


meanwhile countless road accidents that caused injury go unreported
 #181979  by NS3737
 
David Benton wrote:meanwhile countless road accidents that caused injury go unreported
Well call it journalistic license, but the plain truth is that any railway incident how minor in consequences is front page news. Up here in the Netherlands each weekend there are more road accident related deaths as railway related ones in a whole year. The first are delt with in just one minor article hidden deep down in the monday papers while a railway incident will make the front page for days.

The cynical conclusion: the journalist just prefer cars and do not like trains!

One can also look on a brighter side: road accidents are so common that there are not newsworthy, while railway accidents are luckily still very uncommon so that these make it to the front page of the newspapers.

The more realistic conclusion: rail transport is still one of the safest forms of transportation. Unfortunately by the overeactive news coverage by the media (not only papers) of railway accidents that will not be the message received by the general public.

Gijs