TheInsider

Green light for safe and reliable trains

SOMETIMES the government is gracious enough to concede that some services it provides may be unsafe, unreliable and inefficient.

“Train commuters will soon experience a transport system that is safe, reliable and efficient as the state-of-art Gauteng Rail Nerve Centre as unveiled on Monday,” the government news agency reports.

The centre will function as a signalling control centre for the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa), informing commuters of network interruptions and telling them if the train is running late.

The nerve centre will not be able to determine if Lucky Montana, Prasa’s fired former boss, is on any of its trains, but whether he is or not will make no difference to reliability and efficiency.

Montana, who takes his name from a US state that is sometimes unofficially known as “the Last Best Place”, left his last best workplace kicking and protesting.

His next best seat, now that he is minus the rewards of a CEO’s chair, could be a seat on a railway carriage — at least it promises to be safe, reliable and efficient.

Not very inviting IF EVER there were an e-mail to make the heart of a hack turn to concrete and sink out of sight with dread, it was the one about an online media invitation tool.

It promises to target the inboxes of reporters, calendar editors, bloggers and “news evaluators of all stripes and interests”.

The promoters of the site set their sights on “event planners, brand managers, ad agents, publicists, promoters and sole proprietors to extend mass invites for just $49 a time”.

“Invite the Media is a fresh, high-impact and laser-targeted way to engage media influencers, bloggers and news gatherers up close and personal,” they say.

The Insider cannot think of a worse development for her inbox, which is already swamped with all