{"id":454029,"date":"2026-05-31T12:08:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T12:08:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/454029\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T12:08:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T12:08:25","slug":"tranzalpine-stuck-in-tunnel-for-an-hour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/454029\/","title":{"rendered":"TranzAlpine stuck in tunnel for an hour"},"content":{"rendered":"

RNZ Digital reporter<\/a>s<\/a><\/p>\n

The Transport Accident Investigation Commission is looking into how a scenic train carrying more than 100 passengers got stuck in a South Island tunnel.<\/p>\n

The Christchurch to Greymouth TranzAlpine service train 803 was travelling in a tunnel about 10km north of Springfield when it stopped just before 10am yesterday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was carrying 103 passengers and stayed in the tunnel for roughly an hour. No one was injured.<\/p>\n

TAIC chief accidents investigator Louise Cook said the commission wants to hear from all passengers as soon as possible.<\/p>\n

“It’s crucial in every investigation to capture any evidence that could change with time – and that includes the recollections of the passengers on board.”<\/p>\n

Investigators will also be talking to the train’s crew and those involved in its recovery.<\/p>\n

‘I didn’t even realise it was an emergency’<\/p>\n

One passenger said the train calmly came to a stop inside the tunnel and she was surprised an investigation was being deemed necessary.<\/p>\n

Auckland’s Lisa Brien Herd was travelling in the South Island with her family and said the situation was well handled by crew.<\/p>\n

“We understand things like that happen… There was no sense of panic, I didn’t even realise it was an emergency… so I was quite surprised that there was going to be an investigation at all.”<\/p>\n

She said passengers caught up in the disruption were relaxed.<\/p>\n

KiwiRail said the train was pulled back to Christchurch before buses were organised for passengers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RNZ Digital reporters The Transport Accident Investigation Commission is looking into how a scenic train carrying more than…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454030,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-454029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454029","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=454029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454029\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}