Te Huia loses half the train!

TVNZ reports:

The Te Huia service was between Paerata heading toward in an 80km/h zone on Monday evening when without warning it pulled apart – causing the emergency brakes to lock on. No one was hurt.

KiwiRail's acting chief operating officer Walter Rushbrook said the rear two carriages drifted apart from the front part of the train.

“When that occurs all the emergency systems kick into place and the train automatically stops.”

He said a worker connects the carriages using a coupling system and it is checked before each train journey.

Maybe the back carriages got bored of having almost no passengers and decided to go AWOL, figuring it would takes weeks before anyone noticed they had disappeared?

More seriously trains should not decouple like this. Something has gone seriously wrong.