R 3,5 Billion

That is what PRASA spent on refurbishing yellow and grey trainsets, only to park them for vandals, or scrap them. That is how we South Africans roll. We get brand spanking new blue and white commuter trains, and completely forget we are sitting on re-usable rolling stock.

The original amount acquired was more than R7 billion, but someone caught them at it, legally halted the process, around the R 2.5 billion mark. Still, another R 1 Billion was wasted.

What it could have bought

• Swift, light 3-car battery-powered tourist trains, 7.5hr daily and nightly trips between Mossel Bay and Cape Town, with good coffee, snacks and internet. Cost: R1 billion, using existing rail, including connecting the Protem to Caledon section.
• Similar battery train from Alicedale to Makhanda, as a test pilot. Daily trips, semester start and end student trips, and a high profile Arts Festival experiment, extending the trip to Gqeberha when proven. Trip time 1 hr 30 mins. Cost: less than R 1 billion.
• The same trainsets but as a “Capitals Express” plying twice daily between Pretoria and Gaborone, trip time 4 hrs 30 mins: Cost R1 billion.

With the remaining R 3.5 billion

Instead of spending the remainder on squabbling and lawyers, we could get:

• The same tourist class trainset, plying Durban to Port Shepstone: 1 hr 30 mins trip time. Cost: R1 billion.
• Ditto the North Coast line Durban to Richards Bay 1 hr 50mins. trip time. Cost: R1 billion.
• ditto the Old Caperdown to Durban Main Line through the Valley of a Thousand Hills, Kloof, Botha’s Hill, currently dormant. Cost R0.5 billion.
• Same train, Bloemfontein - Kimberly, trip time 1hr 32 min. Cost R1 Billion.

Or, we could rain the same trainsets between Jhb and Cape Town every 4 hours. Parcels loaded in Jhb at 06:00, offloaded at Beaufort West by 4pm, total trip time Jhb to Cape Town would be 17 hrs, stopping Klerksdorp-Kimberley-De Aar-Beaufort West-Cape Town.

If the ministers could wake from their sloth and the president from his, they could merge SAPO and PRASA mainline to make ‘SA MEYL’. The centre car of the trainset could be a parcels coach, scoring:

• guaranteed same day courier delivery on some of those routes
• Safely guanteed overnight delivery on all of them
• Parcels revenue offsets passengers and vice versa
• Tourism gets a lift, platteland accommodation gets a lift
• Middle class and well-off elderly return to rail
• SAPO uses ’last mile’ vehicles only on these routes saving vehicle lease/purchase and moving vehicles off roads
• SAPO survives, smaller, but there, and passenger main line revives.
• an export market for all African rail with either Cape Gauge or Metre Gauge

All this (apart from Protem-Caledon) on existing track, with existing tachnology. We got nothing for R3.5 billon. What a bunch of dead heads.

And that is my A4 page on the subject.