{"id":32900,"date":"2025-09-20T07:51:26","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T07:51:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/32900\/"},"modified":"2025-09-20T07:51:26","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T07:51:26","slug":"passengers-trapped-on-wellington-train-peeing-in-bags","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/32900\/","title":{"rendered":"Passengers trapped on Wellington train ‘peeing in bags’"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Krystal Gibbens of RNZ<\/a><\/p>\n

Commuters\u00a0stranded\u00a0for more than three hours on a Wellington train were forced to improvise when nature called – using “travel johns”, or disposable toilet bags, handed out by staff.<\/p>\n

The Waikanae service was stuck on the bridge over Hutt Road after an overhead power cable came down around 7.40am on Friday, knocking out three trains.<\/p>\n

Geoffrey Weal, a passenger aboard this morning’s stranded service, said it stopped about 8am and didn’t get going again until 11am.<\/p>\n

He said passengers were told a power cable had snapped and was lying on the train.<\/p>\n

The most affected service was finally hauled into Wellington Station at about 11.20am, with 152 passengers on board.<\/p>\n

‘A very awkward situation’<\/p>\n

Claims were soon made on social media that people were going to the toilet in plastic bags.<\/p>\n

Metlink senior manager Paul Tawharu confirmed with RNZ\u00a0Checkpoint\u00a0that the incident left staff facing an awkward challenge.<\/p>\n

“Our metro trains don’t have toilets, so we had to hand out emergency supplies,” he said.<\/p>\n

The “supplies” were chemical bags designed to absorb liquid and neutralise odour, with adapters for men and women.<\/p>\n

Passengers were directed to use the driver’s cab for privacy. Tawharu admitted it was “a very awkward situation”, but praised staff for looking after passengers and keeping them informed.<\/p>\n

One commuter posted on social media that people had resorted to peeing in plastic bags.<\/p>\n

Others said the crew had been “amazing” and remained upbeat as the train was towed back to the station.<\/p>\n

Despite the ordeal, passengers were not offered refunds. Tawharu said fares were still charged, though default maximum Snapper charges were waived.<\/p>\n

“We probably have [charged them], yes,” he said when asked if commuters had still paid for their disrupted trip.<\/p>\n

By the time the train limped back into Wellington, spirits were reportedly light-hearted, with many passengers more concerned about their Snapper balance than the lack of loos.<\/p>\n

Incident to be investigated<\/p>\n

KiwiRail Wellington Metro GM Andy Lyon said Wellington’s overhead infrastructure was not that old, and they did not yet know what caused the wire to come down.<\/p>\n

“This incident will be fully investigated.”<\/p>\n

Although all services are up and running, RNZ understands that the disruption has caused some delays of up to 20 minutes along the K\u0101piti Line Friday evening.<\/p>\n

Repeated issues on Wellington train lines<\/p>\n

A “power supply failure” affected signals, cancelling trains during the peak morning commute in March this year.<\/p>\n

Signal faults also\u00a0cancelled trains\u00a0in May and\u00a0September, and a points fault affected\u00a0signal lights in June.<\/p>\n

In January 2024, several commuters were\u00a0left stranded\u00a0between stations due to a power outage caused by warm weather.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Krystal Gibbens of RNZ Commuters\u00a0stranded\u00a0for more than three hours on a Wellington train were forced to improvise…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-32900","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}