The Citizen reports that Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) Acting CEO Mthura Swartz on Wednesday blamed vandalism and cable theft after two trains collided near Germiston this week.  

The accident left more than 200 people injured.  But it was the signalling errors which followed the vandalism which actually caused the collision.  There have been a number of accidents over the past year involving Prasa commuter trains which have been caused by human error in the manual signalling process, even while the organisation has flouted safety orders from the rail safety regulator, putting hundreds of thousands of passengers at risk.  The latest train crash happened a week after a fatal train accident involving a truck left at least 18 people dead near Kroonstad.  On Wednesday, the Railway Safety Regulator (RSR) issued the Prasa with another prohibition directive, barring it from allowing trains to be directed manually on different routes, after it found that it was this method which led to the crash in Germiston on Tuesday.  It also emerged that Prasa had contravened a previous prohibition directive issued last year, ordering that no manual signalling was to be used in Gauteng.  This was one of the reasons why the RSR issued its latest directive nationally, saying it was increasingly concerned with the use of manual signalling.

• Read this report by Simnikiwe Hlatshaneni in full at The Citizen

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