Botswana Railways loses P15m in passenger train accident

The Botswana Railways passenger train, BR Express, is expected to resume normal duty today after the disruption to its schedule occasioned by a rail crash that took place just before midnight on Monday.

The train crashed onto a stationary goods’ wagon that had detached from another train that had passed by the accident spot earlier. The wagon, which caused extensive damage to the BR Express locomotive, was carrying maize which was transiting to Zimbabwe from South Africa. Speaking to The Midweek Sun on Tuesday morning at the accident scene by the Tropic of Capricorn strip, BR CEO Dominic Ntwaaagae said the passenger train carrying 143 passengers was from Gaborone going to Francistown.

“The accident happened Monday night around 2350hrs. None of the passengers on board sustained serious injuries, only 20 were complaining of body pains. From the 20, one was an expectant woman and was rushed to hospital where she has since been discharged. We have advised the rest to go for check-ups.”
Ntwaagae said the train was speeding at 80km/hour. The driver only saw the wagon very late and could not apply the brakes. After hitting the wagon, the train pushed on for some 50 metres before coming to a stop. Some of the coaches fell off the rail, the impact of which caused rail track damage of about 200m. With the locomotive crashing and getting stuck onto the wagon, six other coaches also got damaged.

The passenger train coming from Francistown to Gaborone was stopped in Mahalapye and passengers were transferred to two buses to reach their destination. “Also from the accident scene, we managed to mobilise two buses at around 4am to complete the journey to Francistown,” he said.  On Tuesday afternoon, the BR team was on site to restore the rail. The head coach was still stuck to the wagon and another team was trying to pull it off. Ntwaagae said the process would take all day. In the meantime, another team was doing preliminary investigations on the accident.

«In an area like this, nothing guides us to identify the distractions on the rail road, unlike at our stations where we have GPS systems. Our coaches do not have GPS. We are hoping that by Wednesday evening we will have our passenger train back on the route. In terms of losses on the business, we estimate between P10 to P15million including the repairs,» said Ntwaagae.

The damaged coaches and locomotive are expected to be taken for service this week. Since 1991 to date, only five passenger train accidents have been recorded while the last goods train accident was recorded 15 years ago.