MEDIA RELEASE 14 August
Veolia Transport Auckland Hits The Charts With ‘The Rail Safety Song’

Veolia Transport Auckland’s (VTAK) ‘Rail Safety Song’ aims to take the rail safety message to primary school aged children in Auckland and around the country.

New Zealand’s nationwide Rail Safety Week 2012 runs from 13 to 19 August. Each year during Rail Safety Week, Veolia Transport Auckland works with KiwiRail and the Chris Cairns Foundation taking the rail safety message to primary and secondary schools in the Auckland area. The week focusses children and young adults’ attention on the dangers of the rail network from the people that see unsafe behaviour first hand; Veolia and KiwiRail drivers.

This year one train driver got a little more creative with the delivery of the safety message and penned a catchy tune, with messages he believes are key to educating young children, current and future users of the rail network.

As a result, the Rail Safety Week visits to primary schools in the Auckland area are a little different this year, and Takanini Primary was the first school to see and hear the specially made animated video in the hope that the message is taken on board. (Visit link here).

The song, written and recorded by VTAK Locomotive Engineer Lawrence Foakes and his band, animated by Mukpuddy and funded by Veolia Transport Auckland was shown to the school with the help of actors dressed as railway crossings. The costumes were acquired by KiwiRail after being worn as costumes to the Wellington Rugby Sevens. Equipped with bells and whistles, Takanini’s primary school children were able to use the actors to practice what the song was teaching them “Wait till the bells have stopped. Look left, look right, take your time everything will be right…Any time, any direction, anywhere”. Each child was awarded a Rail Safety Star as they did so.

The 2012 Rail Safety Campaign is aimed at reducing trespassing and improving pedestrian safety around the rail network. Trespassing can include taking short cuts beside or across tracks; using tracks as a footpath between stations; loitering around railway property; and committing acts of vandalism in the rail corridor.

Since 2000, 147 pedestrians have died on railway tracks around New Zealand, of which 126 were classified as trespass. In the last seven months alone there have been more than 30 trespassing incidents – nine of which were fatal*. Thirteen of these incidents were in Auckland; seven were in the Greater Wellington region; and ten were spread around the rest of the country.

*this includes self-harm incidents.

Song credits go to:

Vocals - Tina White
Bass and Production – Gavin Sentch
Lyrics and Guitar - Lawrence Foakes
Design and Animation - Mukpuddy
Proudly supported by Veolia Transport Auckland
© Lawrence Foakes. Licenced to VTAK

ENDS

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