Wellington residents call for safety upgrades after train derailment

A Wellingtonian whose home was in the potential path of a derailed train says it's time the network had life-saving technology that's already in Auckland.

Several people were injured when a passenger train ran a red light as it left Khandallah Station on Saturday night, hitting a concrete safety barrier at 30kmh.

Witnesses described hearing a thunderous bang and seeing "lots of blood" in the train driver's cabin.

The Transport Accident Investigation Commission is investigating the cause of the crash and the train is currently being removed.

The Johnsonville Line remains closed, but is expected to open on Monday 15 June provided the track hasn't suffered major damage.

'Keep the block'

Bede Crestani, who lives metres below the crash site, said a recently installed concrete block lowered the chances of the train ploughing into two or three houses.

KiwiRail general manager of the Wellington metro network Andy Lyon confirmed the buffer was installed in April 2025, replacing a sand trap at the end of the run-off section of track.

He said concrete blocks would be installed elsewhere as tracks came up for renewal.

Crestani was adamant the concrete block saved lives and clearly demonstrated the value of maintenance on the railways.

"We hope that KiwiRail get to do more of it. That they actually get funded by government to do capital expenditure."

One of Crestani's neighbours - who preferred not to be named - was also grateful for the buffer and said it was a shock to see the train crash so close to his house.

"I probably had never thought of the train coming down here. Just hoping they'll keep the concrete block. Keep the block."

Crestani said the infrastructure didn't need to be "fancy" as "basic concrete and steel" had proved its worth, but he thought modern safety upgrades were also warranted.

"I believe that they've been advocating for years to put an auto-stop on the train. We talk around self-driving cars, isn't a railway the most basic place you could have all of that technology and algorithms?

"It's so basic - put technology in that's safe and efficient."

Wellington's safety system odd one out

Crestani's call for tech-upgrades comes amid questions about the future of an automatic system on Wellington's train network.

At a Greater Wellington Regional Transport Committee meeting on Tuesday, Metlink senior manager of operations Paul Tawharu confirmed the southbound two-car passenger train "effectively ran a red light" as it left the station, diverted onto a run-off track and crashed into a concrete buffer at about 30kmh.

Tawharu said the train safety system performed as expected absorbing the energy of the impact and preventing the rear car from "telescoping over the front car".

Transdev Wellington managing director Tonia Haskell said the two train staff onboard were still in hospital under observation after suffering head injuries and concussion.

"One of them will stay in there for a while as he has had a reasonably serious knock to the head. Bumps and bruises, no broken bones as far as we're aware."

She said the train staff had been stood down until they were "absolutely ready to come back" and work was still underway to identify the nine passengers onboard.

Haskell said it was the fourth time a Wellington train had run a red light this year.

She said all safety controls (excluding the concrete block) were manual and maintained the European Train Control System [ETCS] - which operates in Auckland and across Australia - "would definitely have helped" in Saturday night's incident.

The system has the power to override the driver - reducing the train's speed out of the station and applying the brakes if approaching a red light too quickly.

KiwiRail chief metro officer David Gordon said the ETCS may not have prevented the crash entirely, but it would have lessened the severity reducing the impact of the collision to more of a "nudge".

He said Wellington had a safe signalling system but it was "much less forgiving of incident or error" than its equivalent system in Auckland.

"[The ETCS] monitors the way the train is being driven and if it believes it is being driven incorrectly, it intervenes and takes control," Gordon said.

He said running red lights was still possible, but the system was well-proven as a safety feature in Australasia - and Wellington's lack of ETCS was "unusual".

The funding question

Greater Wellington Regional Council chair Daran Ponter said implementing the system in Wellington had been discussed for "quite a long time" and felt the question of funding was "just being kicked around somewhere in the public service system".

Gordon conceded it was a "big chunk of money" for the Crown to spend, estimating the cost of implementation between $500-$750 million.

He told RNZ ETCS for Wellington was not currently funded and KiwiRail had investigated a variety of options, costs and delivery methods for implementation.

He said it was a challenging economic argument to get across the line, but said an incident might change that, although getting it in place would take time.

"If someone turned up and gave me a cheque tomorrow it would be a four year process."

Transport Minister Chris Bishop said while Gordon's "reckons" were interesting he would wait until the two investigations into the crash were done before concluding what happened and what could have prevented it.

He said the government had previously allocated $20.6m for the development of a business case for Wellington Re-signalling and Automatic Train Protection, which was almost complete.

"We expect that the business case will traverse all relevant options, including ETCS, with a thorough assessment of costs and benefits.

"KiwiRail will submit the business case to NZTA for funding consideration through the NLTP once it is complete, which is the appropriate process for such investments to follow."

Bishop said Crestani was correct and that metro rail had been "consistently underfunded".

"This is why across this government's Budgets we have allocated a total of over $350 million to address overdue renewals work in Auckland and Wellington. While we've made a start, there is more to do."

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