Journey towards incompetence - News24.com

[Gabor Kovacs]

With certain heritage operators having to contend with difficult or even cancelled operational access, as a third party to TFR and or PRASA, since late last year, here is another article I found on the net that illustrates clearly the service levels that the current rail system operator offers the public.

From News24.com

Journey towards incompetence
by Douwe Ganzevoort
2011-05-09 11:00

As a child I grew up in De Aar and saw firsthand how Spoornet transformed itself into a company of nothingness. Unfortunately, I had to experience it firsthand last night when my wife and I took the Trans Karoo Shosholoza Meyl from Johannesburg to De Aar.

We just arrived fresh from South Korea where we took trains weekly without them ever being late and almost always arriving on the scheduled minute (or if they are by chance late with a minute or two it’s a big embarrassment for management) we thought to ourselves why not take the train in South Africa as well?

Our scheduled departure from Johannesburg was 12:30 and when the train pulled in at 12:40 we thought it was pretty accurate. All the passengers got on the train only to be standing on the Johannesburg station for (wait for it) 2h30mins.

The reason for the late departure - they were waiting for food for the cafeteria! Now I’m not in management but how difficult is it to phone the food supplier and tell them: “Listen, you are late. We are starting our trip and you can meet us at our first stop in Krugersdorp to deliver the food there.” Unfortunately there was no one with such thinking capacity nearby so we waited.

Now because we did not leave on time our slot on the rail was taken and all the way through we had to wait at least five times for about 30 minutes each time so that other trains can come from the front and then we can go. In Warrenton I thought Spoornet diversified their product range and started hotels on train wheels because as a train we were not functioning very well.

We stayed on the Warrenton station from 01:42 in the morning until 03:27. That is 1h45m just standing on a station? The reason I know the times so well was that I was thinking of my poor dad who waited at the De Aar station for the scheduled arrival at 01:18. I could not contact him because we did not have a cellphone having just arrived from Korea. (We arrived at De Aar at 09:20 - 8 hours behind schedule).

During that time I also consulted the timetable that the friendly lady who issued me my ticket gave me. It said that we had to arrive in Warrenton at 19:49 and depart again at 19:55. That is six minutes compared to 1h45m. So I thought, why not stop printing useless timetables on flashy paper and spend the money to train a person how to send a train on a rail in good time. It can’t be that difficult, the whole world has perfected this art about 200 years ago.

Having travelled in a lot of trains the past few months all over China and Korea, South Africa really has the potential for a world class train. The scenery can quite possibly be the most beautiful anywhere, the toilets were clean, the cafeteria had decent food and the train was really clean. Now just to get it to a certain place on time.

If Spoornet was a private company it would have gone down the drain for giving such service, but being a state run company this is unfortunately what we have come to expect of it.

If people with a grade 5 and an F in woodwork can somehow run a country, what are the education levels of the people in the Spoornet management? It is limping along looking like a man stabbed in the brain, heart and lungs.

[Chris Janisch]

How true!