A night trapped on the tracks: Train driver remembers 2016 Kaikōura earthquake
Wednesday, 13 November 2019
It was two minutes after midnight when Wayne Sullivan felt the freight train he was driving start to rock violently side-to-side.
Sullivan put the brakes on and felt the 737 slow to a halt as a magnitude-7.8 earthquake struck New Zealand.
Three years ago, on November 14, Sullivan was sat in the locomotive, about 15 kilometres north of Kaikōura, watching the sea for a tsunami.
He was 'blissfully unaware', alone on the train that night, how lucky he was. It was only when he was helicoptered out in daylight that he realised '500 metres in either direction, it would have been lights out'.
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Dozens of massive slips covered the rail corridor and large sections of the track were mangled.
Three years on, one of New Zealand's largest ever rail restoration projects is almost complete. It reopened to freight trains in September 2017, and the first post-earthquake passenger train ran in November 2018.
After seven years driving trains with KiwiRail, Sullivan was retraining as an air traffic controller. He enjoyed driving trains, and didn't seem too shaken by the earthquake, but said he was chasing another challenge.
Sullivan had picked up the train at Pines Crossing Station, about 30 kilometres north of Kaikōura, about 15 minutes before the earthquake.
Before reaching the iron gate tunnels, which cut through the coastal edge of the mountains, he felt the train start to rock.
'I was looking around trying to figure out what was going on.'
He was looking straight ahead, watching dust fall from the ceiling of the tunnel he was about to enter. He put the brakes on, slowing the momentum of the train.
As the train slowed he went through the first tunnel with the locomotive pulling to a halt before entering the next tunnel.
He pressed the emergency button. A few minutes later train control radioed through: '737 stop the train, there's been an earthquake'.
'It was nice to know it wasn't just my imagination,' Sullivan said.
The ocean was on his left and the state highway on his right.
He watched the ocean. It was a bright moon that night, 'I could see the ocean very clearly'.
A tsunami risk was his greatest concern.
'My number one priority was, keep an eye on the ocean, make sure it doesn't rush out.
'If it does rush out, get to high ground.'
He packed a bag with a torch, radio and food, and was prepared to run at any minute.
That was how he spent the rest of the night, sitting in the dark of the locomotive, intently watching the ocean after each aftershock, but mostly 'completely unaware of the extent of the damage'.
A local rode down on a motorbike and told him the earthquake had been felt nationwide.
When daylight broke, he made his way onto the road.
'I took a couple of sunrise photos thinking, yeah this isn't too bad.'
There were helicopters flying and one eventually saw him and dropped down to see if he wanted a lift to Kaikōura.
Before leaving he put a 'track warrant' in place, allowing the train to stay on the tracks. That stayed in force for 180 days.
In the helicopter, as they flew around the corner, they saw an 'enormous' slip over the tracks. The helicopter pilot was telling him how well he did to stop where he did.
'I stopped when I could,' Sullivan said.
But reaching Kaikōura, the magnitude of the event struck deeper.
'In town, it was a lot more surreal. On the train I was blissfully unaware of what was going on.'
'In town … I could see more aftershocks affecting the hillside of the mountains. That was more intimidating than being on the train itself.'
He spent the day in Kaikōura and managed to hitch a ride in a helicopter back to Christchurch.
'Certainly there was a realisation of how lucky I got.
'It's hard to explain to people how serious it was or what the experience was like.'