COMMUTERS’ happiness over the Cape Town central line being re-opened has been short-lived.
Shortly after Prasa and unions held a meeting agreeing to resume services, rail lines at Netreg station were vandalised and a train was derailed. The line servicing the Cape Flats was suspended for more than a week after a 50-year-old security guard was killed at Chris Hani Station in Khayelitsha.
United National Transport Union spokeswoman Sonja Carstens said members were angry because more than five Metrorail workers had been killed over the past 18 months.
Prasa CEO Cromet Molepo and manager Richard Walker visited the area where the train derailed on Wednesday night.
Molepo said thugs destroyed almost everything on the central line.
“This isn’t normal at all. At one point Metrorail staff were busy with repairs and were openly told by thugs that they needed to finish so they could start with their business. That’s how the situation on this line got out of hand,” he said.
Walker said they had planned to stabilise the situation on the Cape Flats by the end of November.
“We wanted to fix this line and stabilise the situation, but thugs have overtaken us. If we fix signals today, only one train passes and the next one will not be able to pass because thugs have already vandalised the equipment,” he said.
