GroundUp reports that full operation of the Metrorail Central Line, which services Khayelitsha and Mitchell’s Plain in Cape Town, has been delayed by another month, to May, according to Minister of Transport Sindisiwe Chikunga.

Last month, Metrorail regional manager Raymond Maseko told Parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts that trains would be operating from Cape Town station to Khayelitsha’s Nolungile train station “by April”. The latest indication by Chikunga comes after she took the 8:10 train on the Southern Line from Fish Hoek to Cape Town before cutting the ribbon on the 200th “Isitimela Sabantu” train manufactured locally in Gauteng. The Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) has been struggling to reopen the Central Line due to ongoing theft and vandalism in late 2019, following the rail agency cancelling security contracts. During the Covid lockdown, thousands of families and individuals who could no longer afford backyard rentals built shacks on the line and in the rail reserve. Hundreds of households have since been relocated, and the Central Line has been partly operational since March last year, but only runs as far as Nyanga, with only one train in the morning and one train in the evening. The train does not stop at a number of stations between Nyanga and Cape Town, while the train to Khayelitsha and the branch line to Mitchell’s Plain do not operate at all. “Progress is being made to recover the Central Line from Phillippi to Nolungile and trains are expected to run by May this year, adding to the services already running from Cape Town to Nyanga on the Central Line,” Chikunga promised.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Steve Kretzmann at GroundUp

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