There use to be a sense of pride in our railway system

IN THE days when we took railway transport seriously the SAR&H (South African Railways and Harbours) used to run an annual competition to find the neatest railway station in the country. Station masters went to a great deal of trouble to keep their stations looking good. Even little isolated stations way out in the middle of the Karoo had a few flower boxes of geraniums on the platform, or if not geraniums, at least an aloe or two planted in a brightly painted car tyre.

The more artistic station masters painted the benches in their waiting rooms in bright colours.

Most of our suburban stations don’t have station masters and are not places of particular beauty. I wondered as I walked past my nearest train stop recently whether it would be possible for local residents to “adopt” their nearest station and look after it. As I have mentioned in this column before, the line from Cape Town to Simon’s Town is one of the prettiest stretches of railway in the world.

Where else can you see a whale from your carriage window as you trundle along the coastline?

Would the bosses of Metrorail object if neighbours got together and gave their local station a coat of fresh paint? Maybe we could plant a few geraniums, too.

I can already hear the cries of gloom: “A potted plant on a public platform wouldn’t last for a day before being stolen or vandalised.”

Well, maybe I’m an incurable optimist, but I did notice a hint of decent in my most recent brush with my local vandals.

At least they were kind enough to shut off my water supply at the mains before damaging my water pipes to steal the brass fittings.

In previous pipe incidents the perpetrators have simply hacked off the pipes, leaving a public water fountain gushing into the street.

Maybe this new breed of considerate vandals would just steal the geraniums and leave the pots undamaged. We can only hope.

Probably a more practical way of making our stations attractive would be to ask art pupils at nearby schools to design and paint interesting mural art on our station walls.

It could be the beginning of a new inter-schools competition, a prize for the school with the most attractive railway station.

On the other hand, we might not even have trains to run to our newly decorated stations in a couple of years if the enemies of the Western Cape continue to set fire to the trains. We are rather a destructive nation.

Last Laugh

Freddie was being interviewed for a job as switchman at his local railway station.

“What would you do if you saw two trains heading straight for each other on the same line?” the station master asked.

“I would switch the points so the trains went to different lines,” said Freddie.

“But what if the cables had been stolen and the points switch didn’t work.”

“Then I would quickly take out my cellphone,” said Freddie. “Good answer. Who would you call?” “I would call my uncle Pieter.” “Why would you call him?” “Because he’s never seen really big trains smash.”