Narrow escape for train driver
PRASA is being urged to take drastic steps to protect its employees and commuters from criminals.
A FEMALE train driver travelling from Cato Ridge to Durban was nearly shot at as she approached the Burlington station near Queensburgh last night.
According to Sonja Carstens, communication, media and liaison officer at United National Transport Union (UNTU), the company has called on its legal team to fast track their preparation of an urgent application to ask the courts to force Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) to take drastic steps to protect its employees and commuters from criminals.
A single round was fired at the train driver, Celeste Roberts, who was driving train 1091. UNTU reported that they were grateful that the bullet did not hit Roberts, who is a loyal member of the Union.
Meanwhile, services at the notorious Central Line from Khayelitsha to Cape Town in the Western Cape where train driver Pieter Barend (Piet) Botha was killed on the platform of the Netreg Station, was suspended due to service delivery strikes by communities in the area. The communities are up in arms about the lack of housing in the area and barricaded roads and railway lines in the area. There was vandalism experienced in the Langa/Bonteheuwel area earlier this morning. Eddie de Klerk, acting general secretary of UNTU, said the situation is getting completely out of hand and is appealing to PRASA to do something before more lives are lost.
