13 Feb 2020

A Botswana Railways (BR) employee has told the board of inquiry investigating circumstances of a December train accident that the company was failing to keep up with the locomotive inspection schedule.

Mahalapye-based assistant mechanical engineer, Mr Kagiso Samphane told the board on Wednesday that ordinarily, locomotives should undergo inspections daily, but due to various circumstances, it was not possible to adhere to the inspection schedule.

Citing the reasons for non-compliance to the schedule, Mr Samphane pointed out that due to lack of a central workshop, locomotives only got an opportunity to undergo inspections when they passed through Mahalapye.

As such, he said when there were no locomotives to swap those for which inspections were necessary, that meant locomotives due to be inspected could not be inspected.

Regarding what exactly the inspection entailed, the witness explained that the exercise included inspection of the rolling stock as well as the topping up of fluids if they were found to be below the required standards.

Moreover, he noted that the inspection also included checking of brakes to ascertain their functionality.

As for the ill-fated train that derailed on December 10 resulting in the death of two crew members, he indicated that the train had undergone routine maintenance on December 1.

The witness nonetheless explained that after maintenance, the workshop did not issue certification that the locomotive had passed the inspection but rather recorded the information on service sheets.

As the officer in charge of the maintenance of locomotives, Mr Samphane said he was not aware of the arrangement that the BD5 series, which ordinarily hauled freight, cannot be used for passenger haulage on the basis that such would damage their engines as a result of under utilisation of their engine power.

“I guess hauling passengers is similar to hauling empties because we have instances where locomotives travel light with no consequence to their engines,” he stated.

As to why the BD5 locomotive was used on the fateful day when BR had 12 serviceable BD2s, which are passenger trains, Mr Samphane explained that at the time, the majority of the passenger locomotives were at the workshop waiting to be attended and were thus unavailable for use.

In response to the witness’ submission that he was not hands-on on the actual inspection and maintenance of the locomotives, but was responsible for supervising those doing the exercise, board member Mr Nyaladzani Daniel cautioned Mr Samphane against the arrangement saying it carried the possibility that he could be fed falsehoods regarding the work that had been done.

Mr Daniel said as the person accountable for what transpired in the workshop, Mr Samphane should be hands-on so as to know first-hand what was actually was being done. Ends