A pedestrian has been struck and killed by a train in the Auckland suburb of Takanini.

A photographer killed when he was struck by steam train may have thought the engine was further away because his perception had been skewed by his camera, a friend says.

A man is dead after being hit by a stream train while trying to photograph it yesterday. The taken to Greymouth Base Hospital with serious head injuries after the accident.

Cakes and jelly snakes were hurled from containers as a freight train derailed in the Waikato today, partially blocking State Highway One near Mercer.

The driver of a Spanish train that derailed at high speed killing 79 people has been provisionally charged with multiple cases of negligent homicide.

As the train sped from Madrid to the town of El Ferrol in northwestern Spain, Yesica Medina paced up and down between passengers with her 6-week-old daughter in her arms.

A train carrying hundreds of passengers derailed and crashed into a station outside Paris on the eve of a major holiday weekend.

The president of the company involved in the Canadian rail disaster which has killed 50 is a New Zealand honorary consul in America.

A truck was cut in half and debris scattered for 500 metres when it was hit by a train at a rail crossing in Ashburton this morning.

Two commuter trains collided outside New York City during the evening rush hour, sending 60 people to hospital.

KiwiRail has accepted responsibility, apologised and admitted "failures" over an accident in which a train hit a woman in a wheelchair at a level crossing in Auckland.

One person has suffered serious injuries after a train and a car collided in Hawkes Bay this afternoon.

One passenger was injured this morning when a Wellington train hit a concrete safety block.

The Government's transport safety regulator has finally decided to investigate the train accident that almost killed a young woman in a wheelchair on an Auckland level crossing.

The mother of a young woman who was hit by a train when her wheelchair got stuck at an Auckland railway crossing last month says people are culpable for the tragedy and should pay reparation.

The woman, now 22, overcame huge odds to get to where she could get around Auckland unaided in her electric wheelchair.

Auckland Transport has been accused of failing to acknowledge long-held safety concerns of local politicians whose turf covers a railway crossing where a disabled woman was hit by a train.

The rail crossing where a commuter train and a ute collided in the Wairarapa today, killing a woman, had no lights or barrier arms, KiwiRail says.

A freight train has derailed near Mauku, southwest of Auckland. The accident happened early today on the Glenbrook Steel Mill access line.