Ticket But No Ride

ON Tuesday June 12 my wife bought a train ticket to travel from Swakopmund to Windhoek with a departure time at 20h45, she was told.

We arrived with time to spare at the station, as TransNamib calls this tiny ‘hokkie’. It was said to be temporary when it was built over 12 years ago, after the original station was turned into the Swakopmund Hotel and Entertainment Centre.What the impressions of foreign tourists are I can only guess! It was a cold evening and a lady sat with her three small children on a plastic bench outside covered with blankets, as the room was full.Departure time came and went.Two hours later, I walked across the tracks to see if I could find someone to explain what the delay was about, but there was nobody around.At 24h00 we returned home, and I phoned an after-hours number at Walvis Bay and was told that the Windhoek train will depart from there in 10 minutes’ time and should be in Swakopmund at about 01h30, as there had been a problem with the locomotive.We returned to the station to see the lady and her children still on the bench.The train arrived at 01h50, and I saw my wife settled into her worn and seen-better-days seat in the business class, and I returned home.Shortly before 07h00 she phoned me to say they have stopped a few km before Arandis: “These Chinese locomotives don’t have enough power to pull the load,” she was told by one of the employees on the train.Because she had an appointment to keep in Windhoek, I picked her up at Arandis station and drove to Windhoek.When earlier I had suggested she go by road, she said that the train was not only safer but it was cheaper! Well this has cost me the train ticket, a day’s pay and petrol there and back plus the frustrating waiting time.Should I put this experience down to “ah well this is Africa”? I don’t think so, we have known better service in the past, and I have read and heard of other people complain of this shoddy lack of keeping to the train schedules.If there are reasons they can’t be kept, then change them and inform the public, but TransNamib’s total lack of concern for the travelling public is not acceptable.This is one family that the “Starliner” will not be seeing again.Hill Family SwakopmundIt was said to be temporary when it was built over 12 years ago, after the original station was turned into the Swakopmund Hotel and Entertainment Centre.What the impressions of foreign tourists are I can only guess! It was a cold evening and a lady sat with her three small children on a plastic bench outside covered with blankets, as the room was full.Departure time came and went.Two hours later, I walked across the tracks to see if I could find someone to explain what the delay was about, but there was nobody around.At 24h00 we returned home, and I phoned an after-hours number at Walvis Bay and was told that the Windhoek train will depart from there in 10 minutes’ time and should be in Swakopmund at about 01h30, as there had been a problem with the locomotive.We returned to the station to see the lady and her children still on the bench.The train arrived at 01h50, and I saw my wife settled into her worn and seen-better-days seat in the business class, and I returned home.Shortly before 07h00 she phoned me to say they have stopped a few km before Arandis: “These Chinese locomotives don’t have enough power to pull the load,” she was told by one of the employees on the train.Because she had an appointment to keep in Windhoek, I picked her up at Arandis station and drove to Windhoek.When earlier I had suggested she go by road, she said that the train was not only safer but it was cheaper! Well this has cost me the train ticket, a day’s pay and petrol there and back plus the frustrating waiting time.Should I put this experience down to “ah well this is Africa”? I don’t think so, we have known better service in the past, and I have read and heard of other people complain of this shoddy lack of keeping to the train schedules.If there are reasons they can’t be kept, then change them and inform the public, but TransNamib’s total lack of concern for the travelling public is not acceptable.This is one family that the “Starliner” will not be seeing again.Hill Family Swakopmund