Cape Town's depleted fleet of trains went from 33 to 32 on Saturday when six carriages and a motor coach went up in flames.

Speaking in Cape Town on Thursday, Passenger Rail Agency of SA administrator Bongisizwe Mpondo said the city had about a third of the trains it needed to run an adequate service.

Services had been suspended on the city's central line, he said, because the remaining rolling stock could not be risked on a line where live cables dangle across the tracks and where a train is vulnerable to armed criminals if it breaks down.

Mpondo said that would all change by September. Over the next nine months, Prasa would begin the rollout of a three-phase plan to stabilise the operator, secure the line and resume a limited service on the central line.

A full service would only be operational by April next year, when 10 of Prasa's new and “more robust” trains would be run on the line as a pilot.