All nationwide heritage train services have been halted from today.<\/p>\n
A passenger aboard Glenbrook Vintage Railways\u2019 \u201cSpiral Steam Spectacular\u201d told the Herald she was sitting window-side when the incident happened.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe weren\u2019t told what happened but looking at the trauma of the bystanders, the trauma of staff … something I\u2019ll never forget. But we weren\u2019t privy to any details.<\/p>\n
\u201cI heard people outside yelling \u2018stop\u2019 seconds after leaving the station, but not in a screaming, desperate way. Then on a staff radio in our carriage came \u2018stop stop stop\u2019 and then we stopped. It was seconds only.\u201d<\/p>\n
The journey was a round-trip that began at Glenbrook in South Auckland and travelled to National Park and back, with scheduled stops at Pukekohe, Hamilton, Te Awamutu, \u014ctorohanga and Taumaranui. <\/p>\n
However, following the incident, the service was cut short, and passengers were transferred back to Glenbrook station by bus.<\/p>\n
Glenbrook Vintage Railways (GVR) has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n
The woman described GVR staff and firefighters as \u201cexceptional\u201d as they \u201cconstantly\u201d went through carriages checking on people.<\/p>\n
Another woman who lives next to the station told the Herald the station was \u201cfull of families and kids\u201d at the time of the incident.<\/p>\n
The resident initially wandered down to the station to see the steam train arrive; however, her son became frightened at the noise and they returned home, \u201cso I wasn\u2019t down there when the actual incident happened thank god\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cI went back down when forensics were there and looked like third carriage from the back.\u201d<\/p>\n
From today, all rail heritage services have been cancelled by order of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA).<\/p>\n
\u201cDue to a serious rail incident in the North Island, the network regulator has initiated a mandatory, nationwide safety stand-down for all services operating under a rail heritage licence,\u201d an email to passengers said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile this incident is entirely separate from our operations here in the South Island, standard safety protocols require all movement to pause until an initial investigation is completed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe safety of our passengers and crew is our absolute priority, and we strictly adhere to these regulatory requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n
KiwiRail referred queries about cancellations to NZTA, which has been approached for comment. <\/p>\n
One passenger who planned to travel by rail from Dunedin to Christchurch told the Herald they were informed by service provider Mainlander at 2am that their 8am trip was cancelled.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got a note under the [hotel] door at 2am saying all historic services have been cancelled.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really awful for the family involved and so they [Mainlander] just need to do what they have to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Replacement coaches were arranged for passengers. The traveller described about 300 to 400 people packed into buses.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Mainlander team here are wonderful and looking after everyone as well as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
The journey was expected to take just under eight hours. <\/p>\n
Police said there was no ongoing risk and asked members of the public to avoid the railway station.<\/p>\n
WorkSafe said it had been notified and an inspector was making initial inquiries. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All nationwide heritage train services have been halted from today. A passenger aboard Glenbrook Vintage Railways\u2019 \u201cSpiral Steam…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":606626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,1975,38474,9218,2372,44156,10748,179719,1359,6179,65838,11583,35698,111,43,139,69,90,14734,4056,312,52087,13655,1324,8690,11685,540,298874,11587],"class_list":["post-606625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-at","tag-awamutu","tag-before","tag-board","tag-bystanders","tag-came","tag-carriage","tag-described","tag-died","tag-halt","tag-halted","tag-hearing","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-passenger","tag-person","tag-says","tag-seconds","tag-station","tag-stop","tag-te","tag-train","tag-where","tag-yell","tag-yesterday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606625","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=606625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/606626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}