The Te Huia train has been temporarily banned from operating in Auckland following two incidents.
In a statement, Waka Kotahi said it had issued the prohibition notice to KiwiRail, preventing Te Huia passenger rail service from entering the Auckland metro area because of recent Signal Passed at Danger (SPAD) incidents.
The notice meant Te Huia’s route, which usually ended at The Strand in Parnell, would terminate at Papakura from this afternoon.
Buses would replace the trains within the Auckland metro area.
Waka Kotahi said two SPAD incidents had been reported by KiwiRail involving Te Huia this year as it travelled between Hamilton and Auckland.
"A SPAD A event is defined as an incident when the train driver has failed to obey a red signal and has entered a section of track where there is the potential for conflict with another rail service.
The automation methods are around recovery from the SPAD, for example by automatically applying the brakes, alerting the train operator, stopping other trains in the section, etc (specifics vary around the world, and I don’t know what specific actions apply here in NZ)
But those mitigations don’t negate the fact that a SPAD occurred, and the driver doesn’t get a free pass just because automation stopped their train.
Even if the train is slowing to a stop, but proceeds a few metres into a red section of track, that’s still a SPAD, and is treated as just as serious an incident, as if the train had carried on at speed.