Commuters were left stranded in Soweto after one of Metrorail’s newly refurbished blue trains was stranded for 33 minutes on the Naledi to Johannesburg line due to a power outage.
It was the first day of operations on that line. According to a previous News24 report, the line was closed for six months for the rehabilitation and restoration of electric cables.
Commuters can be seen jumping out of the stationary train and walking instead in video footage that has gone viral on social media.
Many people on social media speculated that load shedding was to blame, but Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) spokesperson Andiswa Makanda told News24 that the cause was a power outage.
She stated that the train was delayed for approximately 33 minutes near Dube station around 08:30.
“The technician arrived and repaired it, and after 33 minutes, the train resumed its journey. There hasn’t been another incident since then “Makanda elaborated.
“It was just a normal occurrence of an electrical current,” she explained, adding that she didn’t know if it would happen again.
She stated that in the future, technicians will be stationed at all substations so that when a power outage occurs, the situation can be resolved quickly.
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