What a disaster happened to us on 7 November!
We were six pensioners travelling from Park Station, Johannesburg at 6.45pm to Durban. The train became stuck at the Nottingham Road station and we had to cross the railway line with all our luggage. Our thanks must go to the train driver, Mr Klopper, who helped us.
We had to travel the rest of the way by bus and arrived in Durban at 4.20pm. Actually our [final] arrival time was 9.10am, as we had to travel further to Winkelspruit where we arrived at 6:55pm, and then we had to walk two kilometres to our destination.
Our return trip was also a disaster. We left at 7.15pm, and at Germiston, the train got stuck with no water or electricity and the dining car was locked, so we couldn’t even buy water, cold drinks or food. We arrived at Park Station at 1.38pm [to find that] our shuttle had gone back to Krugersdorp. We had to wait till 4.30pm for the shuttle to collect us from the station and had to pay R350 extra.
On both trains, the train managers didn’t even [try to] explain what had happened, which is unacceptable. We wouldn’t recommend the Shosholoza Meyl to anybody.
