The Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) has, once again, been put on the spot after a train en route to Pretoria derailed between the President and Germiston stations, the fourth railway incident in less than a month. Steve Harris, the general secretary of the United National Transport Union, said the train derailed after high-tensile steel clamps attaching the railway tracks to the sleepers were stolen. No one was injured in the latest incident. "We are very grateful for that, but it could have been fatal to both the train crew and commuters," said Harris. On January 9, two people died and 200 were injured in a collision between two Metrorail trains at the Geldenhuis station near Germiston, Gauteng. A preliminary finding blamed the collision on a communication problem involving manual signaling. The manual system was adopted after the automated device malfunctioned due to theft. An East Rand scrap metal dealer, Vernon Annandale, said thieves typically stole the signaling devices an...
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