Video of crowd madness on trains makes waves
A VIDEO showing Metrorail commuters in Cape Town standing on a train’s roof‚ hanging from windows‚ piled up between the carriages and dangling from its doors has caused an outcry.
Three screen grabs of the video have been doing the rounds on social media.
Many Capetonians are quite accustomed to this madness.
But the spread of the video has prompted Metrorail in the Western Cape to issue a statement to‚ among other things‚ defend the driver’s decision to depart from the station.
Metrorail spokeswoman Riana Scott said by not pulling away there was a risk of having even more people boarding.
“The train crew will also be at risk as people get frustrated and angry because a train does not depart,” Scott said.
“Crowd control and overload prevention is extremely difficult as most of the high-volume stations are relatively open and the huge volumes of passengers makes it impossible to control access‚ especially during peaks‚” she said.
The Passenger Rail Agency of SA’s (Prasa’s) modernisation programme includes station access, Scott said. The introduction of new technology would address overcrowding and open access.
She said the company was struggling to provide services in the midst of vandalism‚ theft and arson on its trains.
Thus far‚ 101 trains had been rendered non-operational since 2015 – and the cost to replace them was already at R312-million‚ Scott said.
Every month‚ up to 70 trains were vandalised, she said.
In addition, workshops of Prasa were being stripped of copper wiring.
“It cannot be left to Prasa to be solely accountable for crime prevention‚” Scott said.
Metrorail was in the process of securing its railway tracks against illegal entry by constructing a wall that would cost R68-million in high-volume areas and where vandalism was at its highest.
Costatu said it welcomed any measure to address delays and inefficiencies.