Murray Swart|Published19 minutes agoAfter 16 years, Buttskop crossing shutdown proposed by City

The Buttskop railway crossing where 10 children died in 2010 has been earmarked for closure under the City’s proposed Zevenwacht Link Road project. Sixteen years after 13-year-old Jody Phillips was killed at the Buttskop railway crossing in Blackheath, the City of Cape Town says the crossing could finally be removed. On August 25, 2010, Jody left home for school like any other morning.

He never came back. The scholar transport taxi carrying him and other pupils overtook vehicles waiting at the closed boom at the level crossing and was struck by an oncoming train. The driver survived.

Ten children died that day: Liesl Augis, 11; Jody Phillips, 13; Reece Smith, 7; Nolan February, 13; Michaelin de Koker, 11; Jason Pedro, 14; Nadine Marthinissen, 16; Jean-Pierre Willeman, 13; Cody Erasmus, 15; and Jade Adams, 10. The driver, Jacob Humphreys was convicted in 2011 of 10 counts of murder and four of attempted murder and sentenced to 20 years in prison. The Supreme Court of Appeal later reduced his sentence to eight years and replaced the murder convictions with culpable homicide.

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He was granted parole in 2018. Now, the City has proposed the permanent closure of a section of Buttskop Road and the construction of a grade-separated bridge as part of the Zevenwacht link road extension. A preliminary design for the removal of the crossing was completed in 2019.

Frederick Street was realigned in 2020 as a short-term safety measure in collaboration with Prasa and the Rail Safety Regulator. Residents are being invited to comment on the proposal. For Jody’s mother, Valerie Phillips, the announcement brings a rush of emotion.

“It should’ve happened sooner even before 2010, before the accident happened and then we wouldn’t have had to go through all this pain,” she said. Sixteen years later, the railway line still feels like an open wound. “Even if you drive down that road, it always opens up wounds.

That’s a wound that will never heal 100 percent. You will never feel okay,” she said.

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