Please save the train, it's a gift

Don’t you just love this time of the year?

Everyone’s so chirpy and cheerful, it’s nauseating.

But it has its benefits. My favourites are the empty roads in Gauteng; bliss for us unlucky souls who aren’t at the coast or on some exotic holiday abroad. And because Eskom has kindly given us a break from load-shedding, all the traffic lights are working. Dear Lord, how about we extend your miracle child’s birthday by another week? Ag, never mind.

Anyway, talking of Eskom, it finally has a new man at the helm. I’m not that acquainted with Dan Marokane, but I’ve heard only good things about him. He has the right credentials and experience, but you have to be really brave to take that job. You operate inside a fishbowl, the whole country watching and scrutinising your every move. The blackouts have made us all experts in power generation, distribution and transmission.

Also, reporting to three ministers can’t be fun. Two of them are egotistical ideologues who should have been put out to pasture long ago; the other one loves yapping in front of news cameras. Good luck, Dan. If you are a drinking man, I recommend something strong from Scotland for Christmas.

The worst of load-shedding is, honestly, behind us now. Those who can afford it have put up solar panels on their rooftops or invested in inverter systems. I read somewhere that rooftop solar capacity increased 349% this year alone. Even the National Treasury joined in the fun, offering tax sweeteners on these monstrosities. The removal of the threshold on embedded generation was a game-changer. The private sector has commissioned thousands of megawatts in renewable energy.

But if you thought load-shedding was a nightmare, you haven’t the faintest idea what would happen if rail were to collapse completely, and Transnet went under.

Trains are special. I absolutely love them. They ferry huge amounts of goods and people across long distances, and if you take care of them, they will take care of your country and its people for generations.

I was a watching a short documentary on YouTube of a vlogger taking The Canadian — a luxury sleeper train that traverses that giant country on a 4,000km journey from Toronto to Vancouver over five days. The envy I have!

China, Japan and South Korea have taken the bullet train phenomenon to another level, operating the superfast magnetic levitation train competing directly with air travel. Freight trains are the backbone of all serious economies.

Here we hate our trains. Thieves steal rail infrastructure every day. Greedy politicians and their rent-seekers turn them into personal wealth-generating machines.

The Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa, for all its flaws, has tried hard of late to restore the urban passenger rail system. Its spokesperson, a busy young woman, posts celebratory clips on social media whenever one of her passenger trains resumes an abandoned route.

It has even brought back the snail-paced long-distance service, Shosholoza Meyl. She had people applauding its maiden journey until one of our reporters got stuck on it for 54 hours on a ride from hell.

But it’s the near demise of Transnet that has given me sleepless nights over the past couple of years. Mining is a massive contributor to our GDP and is heavily dependent on a functioning rail network. But the situation is so dire now that almost all mining companies have started retrenchment processes because they have more product than they can ship to ports. The Richards Bay Coal Terminal reported a 30-year low in terms of volumes exported. We have completely missed the commodities boom.

Portia Derby, the now departed group CEO, had noble intentions and actually cared about restoring Transnet, but she went about it the wrong way. She gave separation packages to experienced personnel and frustrated the process of introducing private players on the network. Siza Mzimela, who she brought in to run the most important division, Transnet Freight Rail, was never going to save it without help from the private sector.

The new board has come up with a credible turnaround plan, and acting group CEO Michelle Phillips is saying all the right things for now. The Treasury, which doesn’t favour a direct bailout, has offered a R47bn support package. Transnet might be saved after all. I don’t know about the rest of the country though.

Anyway, back to the empty roads as I bypass packed malls on my way home. Where do you people get money to spend in this dire economy anyway? Have a blessed Christmas.