City train service has become appalling
TAKING the train from Fish Hoek to Stellenbosch just after 3pm on Monday, April 30, I could not believe how bad the train service has become.
On boarding the train, I heard they were working on the rails between Mowbray and Observatory stations , meaning one had to take a taxi at Mowbray in order to travel further.
I have to take the train on the Northern line to Stellenbosch at Salt River. So I wanted to catch the train at Heathfield to take the train to Stellenbosch at Maitland. I had to wait 50 minutes instead of five minutes.
Arriving at Maitland, I was told there was a broken train on that line and I had to take another train to Mutual. There I had to wait a whole hour for the train to Wellington. Arriving at Bellville station at 7.30pm, I was told there were no more trains, so I had to take a taxi to Stellenbosch. When I finally found the right taxi at the taxi rank, it was the last one and was full. So now I was stranded.
Fortunately, a friend of mine who lives nearby gave me a lift to Stellenbosch; I arrived home at 9pm. This is how appalling the train service has become. I have some suggestions for Prasa: Service all trains regularly. Have electronic notice boards at all stations, notifying passengers of all delays and other problems.
The electronic signs on the platforms should give details of train arrival times, instead of safety information.
Employ a bulldozer to remove the sand from the rails at Glencairn and Simon’s Town.
While diesel locomotives are expensive to run and environmentally unfriendly, they are trustworthy and should be used if there is a breakdown, so that passengers arrive at their destinations and the faulty train is removed so that a functional train can be used. Extend a train service to the airport. There should also be a train service between Stellenbosch and Strand/Somerset West.
Good public transport is the backbone of the economy, and if train travel were more attractive, it would be used more, resulting in less congestion on the traffic-jammed roads.
JS DE LANGE Stellenbosch