Remarks by the Minister of Transport, Ms Dipuo Peters, MP, on the occasion of the Railway Safety Regulator Awareness Campaign, JJ Claasen Hall, Noupoort

The RSR is also tasked with monitoring and ensuring safety compliance in all railway operations through audits, inspections, safety assessments and investigations. The RSR executes these and other tasks in accordance with the Railway Safety Regulator Act.

The Railway Safety Regulator has thus brought its services to the community of Noupoort through a safety awareness campaign focusing on rail commuters and road users.

We saw it appropriate for the outreach in Noupoort to focus on safety due to the rail line not having trains running as frequently as before. Consequently people have been ignoring warning signs and placing themselves in grave danger. I hope therefore that this awareness campaign will bring about a behavioural change and that people will act more responsibly.

Level crossing incidents are still a major cause for concern. While the number of level crossing incidents accounts for a very small percentage of the overall incidents within the rail network, the rate of fatalities is alarmingly very high.

RSR has therefore developed level crossing standards and continues to conduct information sessions nationally on all operators.

These sessions strive to facilitate and guide operators on the effective implementation of the standards to promote rail safety. Through these efforts we have seen a 26.6% reduction in collisions between trains and road vehicles at level crossings.

This is an approach that requires the involvement of all rail stakeholders – government, rail operators AND the general public. Level crossings are safety sensitive zones where road and rail interface, and laws governing such areas should be respected.

Through the ongoing campaigns the public is made aware of their roles and responsibilities in ensuring safe rail operations and that they are accountable for their unsafe actions and behaviours, like staff riding or train surfing and crossing of railway tracks in areas that are not designated for this. Failure to adhere to these could lead to severe injuries and devastating loss of lives.

Safety is the cornerstone of operational efficiency in the railway industry and we must continue to put in place building blocks that will ensure that our interventions in this regard can deliver tangible results. Railway safety standards are an important driver in ensuring that safety performance in our railways is sustainable. 

Ladies and gentlemen

For decades the lifeblood of the Noupoort community relied primarily on railway activity. Against the background of the decline in demand on the rail network here, the Department of Transport, through the RSR is aiming to reverse this inactivity and in so doing improving the socio-economic conditions for the local population.

Manganese as you know, is the biggest commodity that passes through this line, with 3 bulk trains of 104 wagons passing through each day. 2 trains of manganese in containers pass here daily.

Motor cars, coals and containers are also conveyed through this line. Shosholoza Meyl runs between Port Elizabeth and Johannesburg daily. Shosholoza Meyl also runs 3 trains a week between Cape Town and East London, passing through Noupoort Via Bloemfontein.

Currently a number of tests have been conducted on the Noupoort line for the manganese trains that are soon going to be running on the line. These trains will be 200 wagons long and they will have multiple locomotives in with power distributed through a radio system.

The first phase has already been approved and completion is targeted for 2018/2019.

These projects should stimulate the local economy and should set it on a growth path that will see Noupoort flourishing once more.

In order to reap the economic benefits that these projects will bring, we will need to ramp up skills development so that the local community is empowered and so that the revenues generated stay within the community.

This entire community should be concerned with an improvement in educational outcomes across all schools in this town and surrounding communities. The performance of Noupoort Combined School is heartening, but a lot more can be achieved.

The handing over of the renovated Science Laboratory this morning, gives credence to this.

Upon successful completion of their studies, we must be able to absorb learners as suitable, qualified and skilled professionals. We would also want to see them ploughing back into their community and impart their skills to other generations. They need to be retained within the community and not lost to urban life. The youth are our most precious assets.

Ladies and gentlemen,

A country without an effective rail network will see millions of its citizens cut off from the main stream of its economy. THIS is what the apartheid regime aimed to achieve. They left behind a broken economy with huge deficits and an infrastructure that was selective in whom it was meant to serve.

The ANC has over the last 20 years reversed these evils. Twenty years hence, South Africa IS a better place than what was.