SAFETY ON THE TRAIN

WILL I BE ROBBED/RAPED/MURDERED ON THE TRAIN?. I WILL NEVER TRAVEL ON A TRAIN OR BUS BECUASE I AM GUARANTEED TO BE A VICTIM. NOBODY GETS ROBBED ON A PLANE.

spell check

this is not a comment about the high speed train, rather a comment regarding the poor spelling in many of your articles. vehicles have "brakes" and whilst the do "break" i don't think applying the"breaks " would have much effect. in fact that would be the result of not applying the"brakes"

Trains

Trains are a great alternative. There is a railway that runs almost past my house and thru many affluent suburbs, but there is a general feeling that railways are unsafe in terms of crime, from pickpockets to muggers and rapists. Who would allow their young daughter to travel alone on an suburban network?
And if you could drive your car to the station, would it be there when you returned?

good things

I still believe in South Afirca.... good things are happening...

Love modern train travel

I travel to the USA every year on holiday. When in the USA I have previously always used hired cars and air transport around the country. On my last trip at the beginning of this year, I decided to buy an Amtrak rail pass. We travelled by Amtrak train from Chicago to Seattle and back again - some 6000 km. What an experience - comfy double decker train, loads of room, great views of the countryside, first class service by Amtrak employees, great restaurant and stop on the train. This mode of transport will now be the only way I will be seeing USA in the future !!!! I just wish good old South Africa would get its A into G, and fix up our rail network. We are overusing our road network, and it is destroying our roads - not to mention the traffic problem with all these heavy trucks on our roads. Timber, sugar, and other transport intensive products should only be allowed to go by rail.

Why not raise a separate new

Why not raise a separate new lottery system that will fund these projects. It will be a like a tax but only paid by those who want to and there is an incentive to win a lump sum at the same time.

Eskom will benefit from the electrically powered trains at the same time.

Imagine

Just imagine the ANC actually doing their work and not using evry project as a means to corruption. The imagine, the systems actually work, imagine they are safe, imagine, imagine...

It's the way to go

High speed rail travel is definitely the way to go. Would love to travel on a high speed train throughout our beautiful country. We should seriously start working on it as it is one of the ways to develop the rural areas as well. It's a long term investment and will take many years to get into production, but we need to start working on it NOW!

GUATRAIN ANONYMOUS

You are imagining things or/and just a plain and pure racist! Please reply with content that makes sense or crawl back into your little Utopia you escaped from.

rail travel

Shame on you Stanton.. So sad that people like you just don't seem to grow. Maybe if you get out more often you will be able to broaden your mind and see how much our Gov has done.. Yes there are those who take advantage of the system but there are also many of us who highlight these chance takers..

Maybe you do need a break from our country.. Maybe if you look in from the outside you will see clearly all the changes that where made..

rail travel

I think this would be a brilliant solution to green house issues, traffic congestion and the depletion of oil resources.. Imagine that, arrive in style and comfort and relaxed..

Can't wait..

Education

It is obvious from the comments below that not only is infrastructure crumbling, but education is on a downward spiral as well. Please learn how to speak and spell proper English, or learn how to operate the spell-checker. Go back to school. That is the only way we will be able to develop and run these advanced systems in future.

The Future is on Tracks

100% agree with your article. SA can really do with a good upgrade of its rail travel. I for 1 cannot think of a better way to spend a vacation than travelling through the beautiful SA by train from Pretoria to Cape Town and stopping at the wonderful rural towns along the way. SA must do it properly - consider the maglev trains or something like the Spanish / German and French trains that can travel at 300km/h plus.

fast rail links

Fast and reliable trains linking Gauteng with Durban and Capetown and another line between Cape Town and Durban would be a fantastic start. Maybe the Drakensburg mountains would prevent JHB/DBN in 2 hours, but JHB/DBN in anything less than 5 hours would be terrific! Think of the number of people who would use this service on Fridays and Sundays. Would make the roads safer too.

Gautrain

One is sad to see that there's still people in this beautiful country of ours, who still think like you people. South Africa does not need negative lost molecules / mind sets / individuals like Stanton. You can not came and tell this country about 1960's train systems, which were only catering you and not all south africans as a non-racist country. Rome was not build in oneday, for example, they took 40 years to destroy this country. If they had planned to live in a non-rasict demogratic country, they would have planned properly for roads,stormwater, sanitation,housing, the list is endless. Today our demogratically elected government is trying hard to rectify your mistakes. Brother africa is for africans that's a fact, so whether you pack your bags or not, one can only pray that oneday maybe you'll see the light and understand our dynamix in this south africa of ours

Train Travel

I agree with Stanton. Services have declined so much since 1994 that I question if train travel will ever be a real option for mass transport in this country, as the rest of Africa has proved before us. This country reached it's peak in 1994 and from then it has been downward all the way, especially in government departments. There are more rail accidents now than ever before so who wants to go by train? And who is going to change this? Start packing your bags if you are not prepared to live in Africa, with it's third world standards!

Passenger Trein Sevices

Before we can think in terms of Bulletstreins,we must bring back first classer passengertrein Systems as we had in the 1960's with proper services between all major towns in South Africa. The main problem is not costs ore materials it is the human relationship of services to custermers on a very high level inter actions between different culture
an languages. We have not have a good name in the railways attenens to services par exellent.

We ALWAYS get the old equipment

Sad to see as always, we get the old technology. We are installing new but somehow we purchase the old stuff the OTHERS don't want.

Stanton you need to relax a

Stanton you need to relax a bit. You sound hurt and biter. Things are shaping up!!

Train Travel

I couldnt agree more with this Positive report about the Gautrain . However let us look back to Post 1994 , South Africa had probably one of the most efficient railway networks in the World thanks to the Business of the Fuel , Farming ad Mining Sector . Due to Corruption , Mismanagement and governments inability to Run a Country properly what was once a Proud Railway system has slowly Crumbled away like most of our State assets .

Our Government unfortunatly has failed like most African Countries , Zuma is my last hope. If he fails i am affraid Me and my Family will be forced to immergrate because under no circumstances will i allow future generations of my family to be ruled my Money Hungry Dictators like Maleme and Co.

Can you imagine what will be left of the Rail system then , let alone our Crumbling Roads network and Communications infrastructure. Espesially when they need to Fill there pockets with tax payers Money