PRASA’s commuter rail operator, Metrorail, is reeling from a series of senseless attacks against its commuter trains and property, particularly in the Gauteng and Western Cape Regions.
May this year, Gauteng Metrorail services were severely interrupted which grounded operations as a result of an attempted cable theft of overhead electrical cables. This single act resulted in the suspension of trains from Mabopane to Akasia and Rosslyn leaving thousands of commuters stranded. In another incident, PRASA CCTV Security cameras picked up a train set on fire where as a result of suspected arson.
Western Cape saw the most devastating acts of criminality and vandalism with the Cape Town Station set alight, trains torched as they stood on the platforms, station shops looted and assets vandalised. The total number of carriages out of service due to arson since March 2016 in that region alone currently amounts to 66. Some 487 coaches have also suffered vandalism during this period. This has necessitated a reduction of service from 701 to 677 trains per day; leading to cancellations and the introduction of shorter trains.
Between January 2017 and April 2017, Metrorail has lost 140 coaches because of theft of critical components, including vandalism and arson, disguised as service related protests. As a result, PRASA is not able to sustain the number of trains in service, even after they return from maintenance, refurbishment and general overhaul.
These acts of vandalism are orchestrated in many forms such as train burnings, cable theft, the cutting of electrical lines, but the most deadly being the placement of objects on the rail tracks aimed at creating a train derailment.
Metrorail operations are already operating on reduced capacity due to old trains and technology with frequent break downs. The current old fleet will still be in the system for the next 7 – 10 years before a critical mass has been achieved with new trains being delivered, and making a visible impact on the improvement of commuter rail services country wide.
Over the past four years, PRASA recorded the following escalation in the incidents of vandalism against its infrastructure: 2013 – 621 incidents; 2014 – 2 558 incidents; 2015 – 1773 incidents; 2016 – 3 300 incidents. The impact on the service from the varied incidents has resulted in train delays, train derailments, train cancellations and even a suspension of services.
The continued vandalism of PRASA assets poses a risk to the Modernisation Programme aimed at introducing new trains and upgrading rail infrastructure. Metrorail will be left with no choice but to suspend its services in high-risk corridors while PRASA will not be able to continue to upgrade key the rail corridors and replace old and aging infrastructure if it continues to be vandalised.
The knock on-effect is that commuters and communities who are dependent on Metrorail will have to seek alternative and more expensive public transport services. Metrorail is already overspending on its operational budget by approximately R 1 million which is the cost of bus services when operations is forced to hire alternative bus services during deliberate service interruptions.
vandalism of trains undertaken by criminal elements is putting our commuters and PRASA employees at risk with an imminent threat of a deliberate major train accident waiting to happen if it is not halted. These assets belong to the people, PRASA is merely the administrator of those assets. The trains are meant to serve our people who are the drivers of the economy. PRASA therefore reiterates the call for the burning of the trains to stop immediately and for people to report acts of vandalism to the police” concluded Mr Zide.