‘Impossible’ for Metrorail to provide reliable train service

The Metrorail said on Monday it was finding it impossible to provide a reliable train service for millions of commuters in Pretoria and the Gauteng province, Pretoria Rekord reports.

This was according to Gauteng Metrorail spokesperson Lillian Mofokeng.

Her remarks follow an incident in which a man was allegedly caught red-handed stealing more than R800 000’s worth of Metrorail cables on Monday in Hercules, Pretoria West.

The suspect, who was driving a bakkie, was intercepted by the Metrorail Gauteng Protection Service while he was allegedly on his way to a scrapyard dealer.

The man was found with feeder cables, estimated at R380 000, catenary wires estimated at R36 000 and a steady arm estimated over R400 000.

In September, the Metrorail had to activate technicians at various areas as it had undergone service disruptions.

Trains running between Pretoria CBD and Pienaarspoort had been delayed or cancelled on numerous times due to overhead wires hanging loose.

Metrorail said even diesel locomotives could not run with the low-hanging wires.

Mofokeng said that the Gauteng Metrorail was still afflicted by the ongoing theft it witnessed at its train stations.

“Management is concerned about the ongoing theft of cables and infrastructure components which make it impossible for Metrorail to provide reliable train services for millions of commuters,” she said.

She said theft and vandalism had affected the return of a normal train service in Gauteng.

“Metrorail is currently running in only three corridors, Pienaarspoort to Pretoria, Tembisa to Elandsfontein and Soweto to Johannesburg in the entire province using diesel locomotives due to loss of electrical cables.”

Mofokeng recently said that Prasa was having difficulty to effectively secure the vast open the network and its 218 stations.

“The rise in unprecedented levels of vandalism and theft of critical infrastructure components, along with the evident growth in the illicit trading of copper and steel on the black market, means Prasa must refocus its efforts towards providing more security manpower.”

“The unfortunate part is that the vandalism and theft will directly affect the majority of communities and commuters who depend on Metrorail.”

In 2019, Prasa recorded loses of approximately R364-million due to vandalism as a result of train burnings, vandalism of power stations and the theft of electrical cables in the Western Cape and Gauteng.

Mofokeng has since urged the public to take a stand against cable theft and vandalism.

“Report such criminals to the nearest police station or Metrorail Protection Services on 011-013-0055/57.”