Salt River Depot - 1

[John Ashworth]

Posted on behalf of Dylan Knott. All photos by Dylan, 20th July 2009.

Good day all

Took a trip to Salt River (former UL workshops) this morning.

Absolute carnage and destruction best describes the scene. Lounge car 697 is the only salvageable coach in this yard. Every piece of glass has been smashed, battery boxes ripped open, all doors are lying on the ground and the interiors of the coaches are completely gutted.

All bearings have been stolen.

Diner Protea is almost beyond redemption. She has no glass, roof is collapsing, interior gutted and now her side paneling is disappearing.

These photos will tell the story in their own words. Years of appealing to lease these coaches have seemingly fallen on deaf ears, now its too late!

FOTR chaps, pls post to forum.

List of coaches:
4599, 23316, 15090, 28118, 14120, 23169, 21035, 8860, 67, 14329, 2754, 28108, 8895, 276, 219, 796, 214, 4444, 297, 797, 4337, 697, 76, 3888, 15079.

Cheers

Dylan

[Stefan Andrzejewski]

SHOCKING DISGRACE.

[Derek Walker]

Its about time somebody was prosecuted for things like this....
But, sad to say, it comes back to my old theory of "who are we trying to preserve it for?"

[James Attwell]

VERY SHOCKING! Are these the one's from Voorbaai or are those still there?

[Steve Appleton]

Read Paul Ash's illustrated article on this destruction, on his blog, located here:
http://blogs.thetimes.co.za/wanderer/20 ... ining-car/

[Steve Appleton]

Les Pivnic's comments on sar-l:

RE: [sar-L] Re: Dining car Protea

I've had a look at Dylan's photos of the coaches (what's left of them!)
at Salt River.

Lounge car 697 was originally the King's Saloon on the 1947 Royal Train
- I can hardly believe what she looks like now!

The problems that we had with museum coaches in the 1970's at De Aar
Bridge Yard was bad enough but this.................words fail me!

Les Pivnic

[Gabor Kovacs]

Under the comments of the above linked newspaper article, the following comment was added;

Well-run preservation clubs, like Friends of the Rail and Reefsteamers, amongst others, would have given their eye-teeth to look after items like this. But they were never given a chance.
The sad fact is that the overall lack of funds and resources for such preservation, coupled with public apathy, bureaucratic bunging, ineptitude and an apparent total lack of responsibility and will by Transnet . .

I totally agree that the above quoted statement, 100%.

What gets me enormously HOT under the collar is that in my opinion, although Transnet (and its former companies like South African Railways) are the official owners, this equipment however actually belongs to the taxpayers and people of South Africa who, through paying the taxes over the last 150 years, if not more, purchased billions of fares (tickets) to travel on the rail system, paid the Railways for goods (from livestock, grains and a myriad more of other commodities) to be moved, and other services the Railway used to provide in the past and which in turn gave Transnet and its former companies the ability to have equipment like this built and purchased.

Today, this is the result of Transnet (former Spoornet) being ill advised a decade or so ago by other Rail Companies from abroad who had no understanding, let alone any idea/s, of the South African railway system, the challenges that it faced then and that it faces today, its history and, lastly, a total disregard for the taxpayers interests, whether then and or now.

We all today, almost on a daily basis, are prominently made aware of how Transnet is only interested in operating its current “core routes”, bulk freight and of course other “cash cows”, like the coal line, iron ore line, harbours, the petrol pipeline, and so forth.

With this in mind, regularly in the past Transnet has sold off, with or without offering tenders or scrapping notices, its “family jewels” as scrap to cater for the ever increasing need to pay company directors and senior managers inflated, high salaries and ridiculous bonuses for “meeting goals” (what goals?). Yet on the other hand Transnet and MetroRail are still clocking up huge financial losses on certain operations, each year!

It seems Transnet has no idea what it is busy doing on the one hand and, on the other hand from the outside, it looks like the company is totally mismanaged and, operationally, in a shambles. It suffers from a lack of vision and hindsight in relating to its present and long-term future viability. Further, Transnet seems to have an inability to plan for its own future, let alone be an integral part of a country that has created it.

Transnet is childishly greedy over assets that it no longer uses or would not like to use and would rather like to see destroyed and eventually scrapped. Lastly, it has absolutely no interest whatsoever to put itself (Transnet) in a position where it can constructively work together with other interested 3rd parties, groups, organizations and so forth. This of course is in the interest of both the public at large and Transnet, which in turn can assist Transnet to generate further, much needed income.

The destruction of these coaches and other heritage assets around South Africa can be squarely placed on the shoulders of Transnet and its former companies.

My questions are: "What is Transnet going to do to remedy this destruction without taking the option of having these assets scrapped or else trying to move these and other equipment out of sight and attempting to scrap them at a later stage? Is Transnet going to repair this damage fully at its own cost, billed to its directors' and senior mangers' payslips? Will it allow other interested parties reasonable access to create further income, both for Transnet and 3rd parties, and even create possibilities for much needed jobs creation in SA?"

[Derek Walker]

The day the bean counters took over from the railwaymen was the beginning of the end. It always is.