Hundreds of rusted Shosholoza Meyl long-distance train carriages to be scrapped and sold

The Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) says 396 Shosholoza Meyl carriages, most of its fleet, are “obsolete” and will soon be scrapped or sold.

At Pretoria’s Bosman Street station alone, there are 155 carriages rusting on the sidings, some for over a decade according to satellite photos.

Prasa told GroundUp that there are “over 600 carriages” for Shosholoza Meyl trains across the country.

295 coaches “will undergo general overhaul” over the course of the next five years, and 22 coaches will be refurbished in the current financial year — the rest will be sent to the scrapyard. Prasa said that the Bosman Street station carriages were among the 396 carriages nationally that would be scrapped and sold.

Shosholoza Meyl, which handles Prasa’s long-distance train services, has had its trains out of service in Gauteng and the Western Cape yards since February 2020, when it was shut down on the Railway Safety Regulator’s instructions after a fatal crash outside Johannesburg.

It has only recently resumed limited operations on two routes — Johannesburg to East London, and Johannesburg to Musina in Limpopo province.

GroundUp visited the carriages at Pretoria Bosman station. The doors and some of the windows of the carriages have either been vandalised or are missing. The upper parts of the carriages are covered in rust.

The obsolete carriages take up most of the space in the yard’s staging area. Many of the carriages have been pillaged for parts by thieves.