Short-term measures in place to increase safety at Buttskop level crossing - PRASA
The Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) said that short-term measures had been put in place to increase safety at the Buttskop railway level crossing in Blackheath.
The Buttskop railway level crossing in Blackheath, Cape Town. Picture: Google Maps
CAPE TOWN - The Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) said that short-term measures had been put in place to increase safety at the Buttskop railway level crossing in Blackheath.
That's where a scholar transport train crash resulted in the deaths of 10 children in 2010 and the deaths of seven men in 2018, while they were travelling to work in a bakkie.
Recently, former Western Cape Transport MEC, Robin Carlise, visited the site to check on improvements and found a makeshift control system, where the booms and signals were not working.
On Tuesday, the City of Cape Town revealed that a lack of funding means that plans for an upgrade would take some time.
PRASA's Raymond Maseko said that the long-term plan was to build a bridge.
"After the 2018 incident, the Western Cape government, PRASA and the City of Cape Town realised that we need to eliminate this particular level crossing. We then hired a consultant and we identified land ownership around the Buttskop level crossing in order for us to start in earnest the land acquisition process to eliminate the level crossing."
He explained what's been done to improve safety in the interim.
"But currently what are we doing at the moment? We changed the level crossing operation in that area. One, we put in CCTV cameras to monitor what is happening at the level crossing. Secondly, we changed the operation of the train, so that the train comes to a halt before it moves through that level crossing."
Maseko said to improve safety, they'd decided to slow down trains approaching the crossing.
"We carry 1,200 people per train, so you would then want to give those people preference, however, the two minutes delay that is caused by crossing that level crossing at the low speed of 30km/h, we believe it is an inconvenience that we can put simply to we ensure we do not pass that crossing at 90km/h as we used to."
He said this also helped soften the consequences of poor driver behaviour.
"Any mistake that is made by a road user at 90km/h is a definite fatality, that's what we have learned. So what we then did is to limit the speed at which the train is passing through the level crossing, we bring it to a halt, the driver is able to have sight and then he gets a signal that you can proceed."