Timeslive reports that acting transport minister Thulas Nxesi wants the Railway Safety Regulator (RSR) and the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) to speed up their investigation into a train crash that injured more than 100 people on Tuesday morning.  

Two Metrorail trains collided just after 7am near Booysens station in the south of Johannesburg.  Seven people were seriously injured.  Nxesi also urged Prasa to speed up the replacement of railway signalling systems.  The RSR last week granted Prasa a one-year safety permit to operate the country’s trains after previously raising concerns that saw it issue a temporary safety permit.  The United National Transport Union (Untu) expressed its suspicion that “manual authorisations” of both trains could have caused the crash on Tuesday.  Manual authorisations occur when electronic signals are not working.  Officials manually instruct train drivers when to stop and go.  According to Untu general secretary Steve Harris, more than half of Prasa’s trains operate on manual authorisations‚ because of broken signalling systems.

• Read this report by Nico Gous in full at Timeslive

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