{"id":354578,"date":"2026-03-30T03:04:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T03:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/354578\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T03:04:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T03:04:08","slug":"concerning-number-of-people-walking-across-wellington-train-tracks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/354578\/","title":{"rendered":"Concerning number of people walking across Wellington train tracks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

\nThe Ava Rail Bridge Pedestrian footbridge was removed as part of KiwiRail’s work to replace ageing infrastructure on the rail bridge.
\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Richard Tindiller\n<\/p>\n

Metlink is expressing concern as an increasing number of people have been trespassing on Wellington’s train tracks.<\/p>\n

Police were called to Lower Hutt around 7.10am on Monday after a person was seen on Ava Railway Bridge.<\/p>\n

Trains on the Hutt Valley Line, from Upper Hutt to Wellington, were running half-an-hour behind schedule during the morning rush.<\/p>\n

Metlink’s senior manager of operations Paul Tawharu said the driver had reported “unusual activity”.<\/p>\n

“Standard protocol is to halt services for police to investigate – it is always better to be safe than sorry,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Police arrived within 15 minutes and gave clearance shortly after.”<\/p>\n

According to police no trespasser was found.<\/p>\n

Tawharu said he had noticed an increase in trespassers after the footbridge was removed<\/a> in October last year.<\/p>\n

The Ava Rail Bridge footbridge was removed as part of KiwiRail’s work to replace ageing infrastructure on the rail bridge.<\/p>\n

The footbridge, across the Hutt River, between Ava Station and Richmond Grove, will be replaced with the Ava Rail Bridge shared path later this year.<\/p>\n

Tawharu wanted to remind people that the tracks are for trains.<\/p>\n

The nearest safe crossings were on Ewen Bridge (to the north) or Waione Bridge (to the south).<\/p>\n

Tawharu also said a separate operational issue was still under investigation near Tait\u0101, which had added to the delay on the Hutt Valley Line.<\/p>\n

“We understand delays are frustrating and appreciate passengers’ patience.”<\/p>\n

Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Ava Rail Bridge Pedestrian footbridge was removed as part of KiwiRail’s work to replace ageing infrastructure on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354579,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45],"class_list":["post-354578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354578","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=354578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}