The story of the National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) is one where the national carrier has come through a harrowing legacy of challenges.
BY NQOBANI NDLOVU
At one point, the NRZ fell on hard times to the extent it was forced to cut down on passenger train services and their frequencies.
Even a reasonable fare of $6 from Bulawayo to Victoria Falls on economy class, and $10 in the first class did little, or nothing to attract customers.
Unreliability of the service provider and lack of maintenance of the passenger coaches as evidenced by broken windows, filthy toilets with no running water and mildew, among others, chased away many.
But, Simon Ncube, a former NRZ employee, is still optimistic that his former paymaster has the potential to emerge from the doldrums.
“I retired 11 years ago after 37 years of service to the NRZ,” Ncube, who was travelling together with this reporter from Victoria Falls to Bulawayo on the train, explained.
“For me, rail travel offers an unforgettable experience. I was there during the good times, saw it collapse, and I am now witnessing its revival.”
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Ncube believes the good times are slowly crawling back for the rail company following the delivery of leased coaches from South African rail utility Transnet.
The coaches are part of re-equipping to get the railway company back on its feet after years on a downward spiral.
The rail coaches were deployed on the Bulawayo-Victoria Falls route and started operating on March 28 this year.
The coaches are part of 13 locomotives, 200 wagons and coaches leased from Transnet as an interim measure while awaiting finalisation of the $400 million agreement with the Diaspora Investment Development Group (DGIG)/ Transnet consortium.
DIDG is a South Africa-based consortium of Zimbabwean investors.
A recent trip to Victoria Falls in the leased passenger coaches showed that some problems blamed for passengers shunning NRZ prior to the NRZ/DIDG-Transnet deal had been addressed.
On-board hygiene issues have been addressed though some taps do not have running water.
The toilets are no longer filthy. Windows are functioning properly while air-conditioning has been improved in some of the coaches.
But behind the “revival”, one cannot miss that the NRZ passenger train service faces legacy issues.
Several coaches remain empty especially between 11pm and around 4am with a few passengers taking the long journey from Bulawayo to Victoria Falls.
“It tends to be quiet between Gwayi and Dete,” said NRZ Bulawayo station manager Vicky Dube.
“Some of the passengers disembark at places closer to Bulawayo such as Nyamandlovu, Sawmills and Igusi, among some areas, as these are predominantly resettlement areas.”
As The Standard witnessed, the coaches can be so full from Nyamandlovu to Bulawayo —about 40km away — with some passengers even failing to get seats.
A single coach accommodates close to 100 people.
Bafana Ndlovu, travelling from Victoria Falls to Masuwe village, about 20km away from the resort town, said he uses rail transport about four times a week.
A single trip from his village to the resort town costs $1.
“For many of us, the rail service is the only reliable mode of transport we have. We have no option, but to take the train because of its affordability,” Ndlovu said.
NRZ public relations manager Nyasha Maravanyika said the rail parastatal had — as part of its turnaround programme to regain lost glory — put emphasis on improving efficiency to lure back customers.
According to Maravanyika, this had resulted in a significant increase in the number of passengers particularly on the Bulawayo-Victoria Falls route to the extent that even soccer supporters prefer to use it on weekends when there are matches in the country’s second city or Hwange.
“There has been an increase in patronage where we now see that a single trip now attracts about 350 passengers compared to less than 250 that we used to register. The Bulawayo-Victoria Falls train is receiving enough patronage because it is reliable. Our message has been very clear that people must experience the service to believe it,” Maravanyika said.
“Most of our coaches were old, and some of the on-board fittings had become dilapidated, but even before the $400 million deal we had embarked on a programme to refurbish the coaches to reposition passenger trains as transport of choice compared to road transport.”
Maravanyika was buoyant that good times were back, but Bulawayo-based economic commentator Reginald Shoko was not convinced.
Shoko said there was nothing to celebrate when other countries were investing in modern rail infrastructure and speedy trains compared to the parastatal’s old-type locomotives.
“The reality is that with the current trains, NRZ will not return it to its yesteryear glory in terms of passenger movement because technology has advanced and they have remained stagnant,” Shoko said.
“In essence, time is money, hence the company needs massive investment in speedy trains that can compete with other modes of passenger transportation and in the current economic conditions that will require foreign investors on the local market and I don’t think there is capacity for such.”
Losing MDC Alliance presidential candidate Nelson Chamisa, in his election campaigns, promised to introduce bullet trains in the event of being elected into office.
Chamisa said the bullet trains would travel from Harare to Bulawayo, a distance of 446km, in 35 minutes.
The distance is similarly the same between Bulawayo and Victoria Falls and takes nearly 15 hours in a train, as The Standard witnessed, having arrived in Bulawayo at 9:55am in the morning after leaving the resort town at 7pm.
Shoko added: “But all hope is not lost, there is a niche market of holidaymakers who will enjoy the long hours of travelling on the train if it’s clean, efficient and always on time.
“The NRZ must take advantage of holidays and also work with tourism companies, especially on the historical steam train which most of these tourists only relate to from history books. The tourist market is the most viable and lucrative for the NRZ.”
Sakhile Moyo is a cross-border trader from Bulawayo. She buys most of her goods in neighbouring Zambia for resale in Bulawayo.
“At least, however, things have changed for the better in terms of service and other issues such as on-board hygiene and being reliable,” Moyo said upon boarding the train on her way to the neighbouring country.
