TimesLive reports that the Railway Safety Regulator (RSR) on Friday barred the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) from manually operating its trains around Gauteng when cables‚ which allow the trains to be operated automatically‚ are stolen or impaired.
“The RSR has issued the Prasa Gauteng region with a prohibition directive in terms of section 36 of the National Railway Safety Regulator Act No 16 2002 for abnormal working conditions‚ that is manually authorising train movements‚ which led to the Elandsfontein train collision‚” it said in a statement. This comes after one person died and 102 others were injured when two trains collided in Elandsfontein‚ east of Johannesburg‚ on Thursday morning. The RSR’s preliminary investigation into the accident revealed that there was cable theft in the night before. Initial reports on Thursday suggested that the man who was killed was a train driver, but in fact the man killed had been on board a train which had been thought to be empty.
- Read this report by Naledi Shange in full at TimesLive
- See too, Prasa ordered to stop operating trains under 'abnormal' conditions, at eNCA
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page