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Let’s face it: the Metrorail situation in Cape Town is above and beyond bloody hopeless.

Hey, if you’re thinking I’m being a Debbie Downer, cast your mind back to all that’s happened in the last week and tell me I’m wrong.

Thank you, I told you so, you’re welcome.

Monthly commuters have it especially rough: overcrowded trains, delayed arrivals and departures, and overall kak service means they’ve had to miss work or – even worse – lose their jobs.

The recent fires have also been doing them no favours whatsoever.

Per GroundUp:

A fire on 21 July at Cape Town station destroyed seven rail coaches and 160 metres of overhead wire.

Check out this clip for more info:

Thought it was the end of that?

Hell no. Another fire broke out five days later, this time at Retreat station:

According to Metrorail Regional Manager Richard Walker, the fire at Cape Town station has cost R30 million and the the one in Retreat R20 million.

It just never effin’ ends, does it?

Ever since these fires broke out, the United National Transport Union (UNTU) said in a media statement last Thursday, Metrorail has now been left with 40 train sets, when it actually needs 88 train sets.

The central line itself is just operating on eight train sets, when 33 are needed to get people where they need to go.

For long-suffering commuters, that means enduring even more misery in the meantime:

Mary Kathembe, who waited almost two hours for a train at Parow station on Friday, told GroundUp that since the Cape Town fire Metrorail service has got even worse. She said that her employer has moved her time to start work to 10:00AM because she is so often late.

“On Wednesday when I arrived at Cape Town station after work [to go home] around 18:00, there were lots of people … Some had been waiting since 17:00. The train was overcrowded and commuters who were waiting for the trains at Salt River and Woodstock failed to board. Those who wanted to get off couldn’t until people started to get off at Mutual,” she said …

Another woman, who commutes from Muldersvlei to Mowbray and changes at Salt River, said she had received a final warning for late-coming last week. She doesn’t know what to expect now.

Humans. What an understanding, sympathetic bunch we are.

UNTU said it had asked Police Minister Bheki Cele to appoint a task team to investigative who is behind the ongoing arson attacks. Minister of Transport Blade Nzimande, who you saw in the second video checking out the burned carriages, said to the media:

We have agreed that the existing task team responsible for investigating the arson attacks, be expanded and it will involve everybody, national, security and intelligence networks. They must report back to us by the end of August. We have a transport imbizo in September and we want to listen to communities, their problems and what they think should be done.

To be honest, I think y’all politicians and trail execs should have been listening to the communities a long, long time ago.

That way, we wouldn’t be sitting here and talking about how plain bladdy hopeless Metrorail is.

Read the full article here.

[source:groundup]