RUSTENBURG – No train hijacking has been officially reported, the Railway Safety Regulator (RSR) said on Wednesday.

The regulator said that it noted with concern the claims made by the United Transport Movement and the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) regarding the Metrorail train hijackings.

“To date, the events in question has not been reported officially by Prasa to the RSR. It is the responsibility of operators to report railway occurrences and incidents to the RSR. The reporting of security incidents to the RSR by the railway operators is provided for in the South African National Standards (SANS 3000-1:2009 Edition 2 under SANS Category 4 – Hijacking of trains),” said spokesperson Madelein Williams.

Williams said the last train hijacking was reported to the RSR in January 2012. 

Metrorail suspends Mamelodi service after attacks https://t.co/iKmqjqLWHe

— eNCA (@eNCA) March 14, 2018

“Our records show that the driver of a Metrorail train was threatened with a knife by two males who boarded the train at Duff’s Road in KwaZulu-Natal at 8.50pm, forcing him to drive to Phoenix which was not his original route. On arrival at Phoenix, the driver applied the emergency brake and jumped off the train. The two males also got off the train at Phoenix and fled.”

The United Transport Movement on Tuesday said trains were hijacked or robbed every week by commuters who become frustrated when trains run late or criminals robbing crews and passengers. 

“Commuters get furious and they simply point a gun at a train driver and force him either by throwing stones or with a knife or a gun to continue on a route,” spokesperson Sonja Carstens said.

The union said the Railway Safety Regulator allowed Prasa to operate trains with manual authorisation if they drive below 30 km/h‚ which contributed to delays.

A manual authorisation was when the two control officers in different stations are not speaking to each other and allow train drivers to continue en route.

The Rail Safety Regulator said manual train authorisations were an accepted international practice for all train operators during degraded modes of operation, for example, signal failures. 

“The RSR would like to highlight that there is no link between manual authorisations and train hijackings. The speed limit during manual authorisation has been in place since February 2013, following an accident between two Metrorail trains which collided between Cor Delfos and Kalafong Stations on 31 January 2013.”

The regulator said at the time, a directive was issued restricting the maximum speed at which a train may be authorised to travel during degraded modes operation to 30km/h.

“The RSR would like to reiterate that manual authorisation is a fall back procedure. However, in Prasa’s case manual authorisation has become the norm instead of the exception due to the high rate of vandalism and theft of safety critical equipment, such as signal and telecommunications equipment.”

African News Agency