{"id":237712,"date":"2022-09-21T04:57:25","date_gmt":"2022-09-21T02:57:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/yet-again-no-trains-operating-in-eastern-cape\/"},"modified":"2022-09-21T04:57:25","modified_gmt":"2022-09-21T02:57:25","slug":"yet-again-no-trains-operating-in-eastern-cape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/yet-again-no-trains-operating-in-eastern-cape\/","title":{"rendered":"Yet again no trains operating in Eastern Cape"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A rusty train stands at Uitenhage main station. Archive photo: Thamsanqa Mbovane<\/p>\n

There has been no train service in the Eastern Cape for over a month now. Train services for East London were suspended on 15 August, and for Gqeberha on 22 August.<\/p>\n

This is due to \u201cprocurement processes\u201d to get new locomotives, according to the spokesperson for the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) in the province, Mimi Katsio.<\/p>\n

All train services in the Eastern Cape \u2013 including Metrorail and trains running between Kariega, Gqeberha and East London \u2013 were suspended on 7 January<\/a> for five months. PRASA said at the time that this was \u201cdue to operational challenges\u201d on the rail network and blamed cable theft and vandalism.<\/p>\n

Trains started running again<\/a> in June with the acquisition of diesel locomotives from an \u201cexternal service provider\u201d. But that contract has now expired. Katsio said PRASA Eastern Cape is busy with \u201csupply chain management processes\u201d and \u201cfinalising the procurement processes to get locomotives\u201d.<\/p>\n

The suspension is bad news for commuters. To get from Gqeberha to Kariega by train cost R9, but a taxi will now cost them R27; from Mdantsane to East London by train cost R9, the bus is R16 and a taxi R18.<\/p>\n

Mzikazi Nkata, deputy provincial secretary of the National Union of Public Service and Allied Workers (NUPSAW) in the Eastern Cape, said, \u201cWe need to end corruption in PRASA and government-sponsored austerity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe call on the state to stop austerity and build capacity of public transport, including the important and affordable role played by trains in our public transport system.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrains are the answer to the unemployment and climate crisis problems that we face in South Africa \u2026 and this must be led by the public sector.\u201d<\/p>\n

PRASA currently has 645 employees in the province. During previous suspensions they were on \u201crefresher training\u201d and coming in to work every day. Katsio said, \u201cTrain operations employees are doing theoretical training to keep their licences active to operate trains when we receive locomotives, whilst customer services employees are doing training on new ticketing machines.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A rusty train stands at Uitenhage main station. Archive photo: Thamsanqa Mbovane There has been no train service in the Eastern Cape for over a month now. Train services for East London were suspended on 15 August, and for Gqeberha on 22 August. This is due to \u201cprocurement processes\u201d to get new locomotives, according to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":237713,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9928],"tags":[28001],"class_list":{"0":"post-237712","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-groundup","8":"tag-groundup","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/yet-again-no-trains-operating-in-eastern-cape.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}