Train services between Fish Hoek and Simon’s Town Railway Stations resumed last week.
Apart from a couple of weeks earlier last year, no trains have run on the Simon’s Town to Fish Hoek section of the line since the national lockdown began in March 2020.
In a media statement sent out last week, Metrorail Western Cape announced that, with this service resuming on Wednesday 5 January, all stations (29 in total) from Cape Town to Simon’s Town were now fully operational.
Nana Zenani, acting spokesperson for Metrorail WC, said the operator of commuter rail services had undertaken a series of repair works which included fallen mast poles at Glencairn Railway Sation (which toppled over last year due to severe weather conditions) and the replacement of cut 11kv and 3kv lines. Additional platform repair works were also undertaken at Glencairn Station.
Metrorail said the total repair costs for the Retreat, Fish Hoek and Glencairn stations came to approximately R4.5 million. “Metrorail will operate under strict speed restriction as additional repairs will continue, including the management of sand blowing onto the tracks and damaging critical equipment on the ground,” said Zenani.
She added that this meant customers would have to plan their departure along with adjusted delays until the rail repairs and maintenance were completed.
“In addition, Metrorail will be implementing additional repair works on the area which may see temporary closures to fix sand issues that are endemic to the area.”
Besides the yellow and grey trains which will run at peak travel times, two Electrical Multiple Unit (EMU) new trains – distinguishable by their blue markings – will run on the southern line during off-peak service as per the Rail Safety Regulator. This will serve as a test period. These EMU trains form part of the Passenger Rail Agency South Africa’s (PRASA) long-term modernisation project with the aim of eventually replacing all yellow and grey trains with these new ones.
According to Zenani, there are currently 12 of these blue trains operational in the Western Cape.
Three years ago, News24 reported that Prasa had revealed two new blue trains, with President Cyril Ramaphosa for a trial run at Cape Town railway station (“Ramaphosa ‘happy’ after two new Prasa trains unveiled”, 9 April 2019). At the time, the then Prasa group CEO Dr Nkosinathi Sishi said it would be a trial operation, giving the safety regulator an opportunity to look at how they respond to the current infrastructure. He added that Prasa hoped to introduce up to 35 of these new trains in the Western Cape by the end of 2020. However, Zenani says the Covid-19 pandemic, followed by “the wholesale vandalism of our lines”, put paid to these plans, adding that the introduction of the new trains was a process.
“The service resumption on the southern line is a testament to that where the lines are operable, we will get them to run. Our emphasis is on vandalism. Every time we have vandalism, it takes us backwards,” she said.
In July last year, News24 reported that vandalism had cost Prasa over R4 billion over the years (“Off the rails: Prasa loses over R4bn to vandalism and sabotage”, 6 July 2021), with the newly appointed CEO Zolani Matthews saying that “the devastation on the network in the past 12 months is probably in excess of R1 billion alone”.
Zenani said Metrorail was appealing to residents and local authorities “to protect the people’s assets”.
“The assets were bought and are being maintained using taxpayer money. Metrorail will, therefore, relentlessly pursue the perpetrators of such vandalism.”
- Anyone with information can contact Prasa on +27 80 021 0081.
