Open Writing

Unlike India, where millions of people are carried by trains all over the country each day with a comparatively low percentage of accidents, South Africa has allowed what was a functioning, although perhaps rather inadequate train system, to run down to the point where now, nearly fourteen years after the democratic election, it, and more importantly, the commuters, are facing increasingly serious disruptions to the service on an almost daily basis.

The commuter service, optimistically called by the cringe-making name ‘Meyl Service,’ has deteriorated to such a point that frequency and punctuality are no longer a criteria. The service grinds to a stop so frequently that commuters have taken to burning station buildings in a futile protest against inefficient and inept railway management, but to little effect. The cost of damage to public property is enormous, and these costs and commuter frustrations are further compounded by additional inefficiencies when ticket offices are non-functioning, computers and signalling equipment stolen or smashed and rolling stock torched.

IRecently The Blue Train, one of South Africa’s most famous trains, whose luxury is on a par with the even more famous Orient Express, was involved in a head-on crash with the ‘Shoshaloza Meyl’ [formerly known as the Trans-Karoo Express] on the main line between Cape Town and Johannesburg. A number of coaches were damaged on both trains and the railway line badly damaged.

The crash happened around midnight somewhere in the Cape mountains, too far to summon immediate assistance and out of cell-phone range. Passengers, thrown from their beds by the force of the collision, staggered out of the train to find out what had happened soon discovered there was only one tiny area where they could get a signal to raise the alarm; it took hours before help reached them.

Fortunately there were no deaths, and although there were a number of injuries, none were life-threatening. The passengers were transported to the nearest town, then taken to their destination. Injured passengers were later helicoptered to hospitals in major centres once their immediate needs had been seen to.

However, a week or so later, when the Blue Train was being towed back to Pretoria for repairs, it was looted of hundreds of luxury items such as bed linen, crystal glassware, liquor, food and electrical goods. It is alleged that the thefts took place when the train was standing in a siding at De Aar, once one of the biggest and busiest steam train junctions in the southern hemisphere. It has fallen into a state of almost trancelike inaction, and from this one supposes that the train was unguarded and with few people about. It would have been easy to break in and steal almost anything which took their fancy.

It is difficult to understand what, beyond extreme poverty, hunger and want, motivates people to act in this anti-social and destructive way. What do the arsonists believe they can achieve by burning the very trains which transport them to their places of work, or by damaging the smooth running of the system by torching the ticket offices and breaking the computerised signalling system?

A couple of years ago, angry commuters delayed at the end of the day, burnt down the national monument Herbert Baker designed Pretoria main station. It stood empty and unused for over two years before bureaucracy finally caught up with necessity and completed the restoration and repairs, of course, at enormous cost to the taxpayer.

The question is. Does anybody believe they have achieved anything by burning down a gracious building in an extremely busy central hub in a major South African city; and does anyone feel that the service is more efficient and faster now that nearly two fifths of the carriages and rolling-stock are out of commission?

Another facet of trains in South Africa is the “Gautrain”, the proposed fast-train service which will ply between Johannesburg Airport, the city, Sandton and Pretoria. None of the cities in South Africa have any mass transport services of any kind. None of the larger cities has either an under or over-ground railway and in many even an efficient bus service is non-existent, so the advent of the Gautrain, proposals and discussions about which have been on-going for years, is eagerly awaited.

One of the major requirements for this country to host the World Cup was that major transport systems would be up-graded, and it is imperative that the undertaking is ready for use in time. But with constant delays, investigations into alleged corruption and general mismanagement of the contract and tenders, together with an inability to begin work, much dissatisfaction and many objections from the public, commencement of this important necessity becomes more and more unlikely with each passing week.

** The word shoshaloza means “all pulling together’’ in Zulu. It is the name of a very popular African song with a catchy tune which caught the popular imagination shortly after the big election in 1994.