Getting back on the rails
Unlike other cities, Cape Town is making an effort to get its seven commuter lines running again — but challenges remain
● First the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) was looted from within during former president Jacob Zuma’s state capture tenure. Then, during the Covid lockdown, when the trains stopped running, it was looted by cable thieves and vandals.
Now, in Cape Town at least, where rail used to form the backbone of public transport, the Metrorail service is slowly getting back on track.
Last month transport minister Fikile Mbalula promised to revamp the country’s defunct rail system, pledging billions in investment.
On January 17 he listed six completed, or near-complete, station upgrades in Cape Town totalling R62m, and said services in five of the Western Cape’s seven rail corridors had been restored. The resumption of services on one of two lines to Bellville is scheduled for March, he said.
Prasa’s biggest challenge in
Cape Town is fixing the central line to Khayelitsha, which carried the highest number of passengers before vandalism brought it to a halt in October 2019. Since then, informal settlements have been built over the tracks and stations and infrastructure stripped.
Mbalula said phase 1 of the central line recovery is being implemented, involving the moving of illegal settlements on the rail line.
He said five of 34 stations on the northern line to Bellville have “suffered extreme vandalism and are in a bad state of repair”, but services on this line will resume in March. However, none of the five stations on this line was included in the list of stations being fixed. It is unclear when this line, which is one of two running to the Bellville interchange, ceased operations.
One of the lines restored on January 5 is the southern line. It is the most scenic line, running next to the ocean as it reaches False Bay
at Muizenberg, to Simon’s Town where it ends. Unlike stations on the northern and central line, and stations across Gauteng, all 38 stations on this line are “in good operating condition” and require only minor maintenance work.
Cable theft led to this line, which was popular among tourists and Capetonians heading for the beach on weekends, going only as far as the inland Retreat interchange from October 10 last year.
However, there are fewer trains running on the line than there were pre-lockdown, starting at 5.50am from Fish Hoek station, whereas previously trains would start at 4.30am. Regular train user Washiela Keshwa says this is a problem because many people in the service industry need to get to work by 6am. The last train to Fish Hoek from Cape Town now leaves at 5.45pm, at least three hours earlier than it used to, denying the service to those who work late.
Additionally, the single track on the Simon’s Town to Fish Hoek part of the line has not been fully incorporated, the train between these two stations essentially acting as a shuttle service. The official timetable does not even include the stations beyond Fish Hoek.
The Saturday service is also slim, with the last train leaving Fish Hoek for Cape Town at 12.40pm, meaning families cannot make a day of it, and there is no official timetable for Sunday.
Cape Town’s mayoral committee member for transport, Rob Quintas, welcomes the reintroduction of the southern line service, saying “one can safely assume” it would bring more customers to the False Bay beaches, with a positive impact on local businesses.
Quintas says passenger rail is the most affordable mode of transport for commuters and relieves congestion on the roads, allowing people to be more productive.
He says traffic congestion in Cape Town has become “a huge challenge”, with some routes having a morning peak lasting almost three hours. A functioning rail system would ease this problem and reduce resultant carbon emissions.
But commuters have been slow to get back on the trains, despite carriages cleaned of graffiti and handbills, and the visible presence of security guards ensuring safety.
When the FM travelled from Fish Hoek to Cape Town and back on a weekday, only between five and nine people were ever in the carriage at a time. This was a vast change from the packed conditions of two years ago, where it was standing room only for much of the journey.
Yet the few using it are significantly reducing their cost of commuting. Luvuyo Jali, who works as a mall security guard, says he travels from Fish Hoek to Wynberg station and back six days a week. The return ticket costs R18, whereas when he had to take a minibus taxi due to the line being suspended, he paid R28 return. The train saves him R240 a month, a significant percentage of his salary.
Lifelong train commuter Lorenzo Davids, 60, who works as a social justice consultant, gets on the southern line at Steurhof station near Plumstead to travel into the city daily.
Davids says the carriages are empty because after a decade of deterioration, and particularly the dysfunction experienced in 2019, people have lost confidence in the trains. But he believes things have started to improve. Though there are fewer trains running, they are on time, clean and safe.
“I think it’s finally being reborn. The stations are neatly cleaned, the trains are clean, it’s a pleasure to sit in [them],” says Davids.
This is slowly bringing commuters back. “Three weeks ago I was alone at the station in the morning, now there’s three of us. That’s a 200% increase.”
Though there are fewer trains running, they are on time, clean and safe