If the button is not pressed in another eight seconds the brake goes on automatically. Peter, who has been woken by the whistle after drifting off, says the device is most useful on night trains. We pick up passengers at most stops along the way and by the time we reach Featherston we have about 80 on board. Before long, we're grinding our way up the hill. Peter tut-tuts as a flock of birds scatter off the track a second before the train reaches them.
Drivers also encounter sheep and cattle on the tracks.
But it's the crashes involving people that are most frightening. As we pass Matarawa, a small white hut on the right of the tracks, Peter remembers one of the fatal crashes he was involved in. The jeep wrapped around the front of the engine. I kept waiting for it to go under the train and tip the whole thing over. The woman killed only lived up the road, a factor in too many crashes.