My chaotic train journey from Johannesburg to Durban
“It is obvious PRASA was not prepared for this journey” says frustrated commuter after long-distance train breaks down several times
This train heading from Johannesburg to Durban stopped for eight hours at one point. Photos: Sandiso Phaliso.
The Shosholoza Meyl has been beset with problems. My journey last week on the train from Johannesburg to Durban saw no improvement. The train broke down numerous times. The longest delay was eight hours.
After stopping for long periods between stations, perhaps 20 times, the last time, in Ladysmith, some commuters left the train in search of alternative transport. Those of us who opted to wait on the train were eventually taken by bus to Durban.
The Shosholoza Meyl is operated by the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) and is the country’s long distance rail service. Many people have fond memories of train trips as it was one of the most affordable ways to travel between cities.
The Meyl was suspended after a fatal collision with a goods train in February 2020. At the time it ran on four routes: Johannesburg to Durban, Johannesburg to Musina via Polokwane, Johannesburg to Cape Town, and Johannesburg to East London.
In 2022 limited operations resumed on two routes: Johannesburg to East London and Johannesburg to Musina.
The Johannesburg-Durban and Johannesburg-Cape Town routes resumed in December 2023. These trips were plagued by problems and hours of delays. And then in October last year, PRASA announced that three of its four long-distance routes had been indefinitely suspended due to the locomotives being “old, unreliable and repeatedly breaking down”.
Now, only two routes are operational: Johannesburg-Durban and Johannesburg-East London. But only one locomotive operates on both routes.
I decided to take the Johannesburg to Durban train to document my experience.
I was sceptical about taking the train ride as it was scheduled to be a 26-hour journey and I was booked in economy, meaning I would be seated the whole ride. The train departed on 27 February at 6pm from Johannesburg Park Station and was scheduled to arrive the following night at 8:30pm in Durban. It was the first trip this year.
Booking it was chaotic. GroundUp had to communicate with a PRASA employee over WhatsApp to make the booking. We paid by EFT. There appears to be no working website for reservations and payment.
In my coach there were about 30 empty and 12 occupied seats. It was clean. Passengers who traveled in economy paid R290 and those in first class paid R520.
We stopped at the Germiston station for commuters to board.
A bus ticket from Johannesburg to Durban, an eight to nine hour ride, ranges from R290 to R740. A taxi, a six to seven hour drive, can cost up to R800. Airfares start at about R1,400. While the train is cheap, it is by far the slowest way to make the trip.
The journey was uncomfortable. Long waits at all the stops with the power off made the coach cold. But I felt safe during the trip, because there were six police officers on board (that I could see) and numerous PRASA security guards.
The Shosholoza Meyl has fallen far from what it used to be. According to the Department of Transport in 2004/5, the Meyl operated on 15 routes with a total of 6,500 train trips that year. The routes connected cities like Cape Town, East London, Durban, Pretoria, and even Maputo in Mozambique. The department estimated that about three million passengers travelled on the Meyl that year.
Less than a decade later, the number of passengers had more than halved. PRASA’s 2012/13 annual report said it had dropped to 1.26-million.
There were many empty seats on the train.
Off the tracks
I doubt any of the commuters on the trip would try the Shosholoza Meyl again, judging by their frustration levels during the journey. I wouldn’t travel again on these trains in their current state either.
When the train broke down at 1am for eight hours, some commuters panicked and decided to call friends and family to collect them between Laing’s Nek and Charlestown in KwaZulu-Natal. There was little communication from staff about what was going on. At some point there were heated verbal exchanges between the commuters and PRASA employees.
A commuter, Siphesihle Manzini, who was travelling with her 18-month-old baby and her partner, told me she started panicking about an hour after the train stopped outside Laing’s Nek. She was afraid she would be late for an appointment the next day.
She said the train manager told the commuters there was a power failure due to cable theft and it would only be sorted out much later.
“The Shosholoza is much cheaper than other modes of transport so I decided to use it, but as usual it has its challenges,” said Manzini.
“It is totally unacceptable that we have to be stuck in the middle of nowhere yet we have paid. There were no announcements of what the problem was and we had to ask forcefully to get the answers. This is nonsense,” said Manzini.
At about 2pm, one bus arrived to take us on the last leg of the trip. Commuters shuffled off the train and grabbed their luggage to pack into the bus. People were relieved. The bus arrived in Durban at 6pm. Weirdly this was a couple of hours ahead of schedule of the train which was obviously given far more time to reach Durban than it should take.
Another passenger, Zubenathu Ngondi, also told GroundUp this was the last time he will board Shosholoza Meyl.
“It is obvious PRASA was not prepared for this journey,” said Ngondi. “It is cheap but not reliable. PRASA is failing its customers.”
PRASA’s response
PRASA spokesperson Andiswa Makanda told GroundUp the Shosholoza Meyl service to Durban “was affected by cable theft” near Newcastle.
“This was followed by a locomotive failure at Ladysmith and the trip was completed by bus that had been dispatched as a contingency measure,” said Makanda.
“Regrettably, cable theft is an ongoing and persistent issue that impacts our operations as well as those of other passenger and freight train operators,” said Makanda. She said both lines were affected.
A PRASA technician inspects the line during the long eight-hour wait at Laing’s Nek.
Asked why PRASA did not inspect the line before the trip from Johannesburg to Durban resumed, Makanda said, “Inspections are conducted regularly, but given the unpredictable nature of cable theft, it does mean that unexpected service disruptions can still occur.”
“Our teams were satisfied that the line was suitable for the service prior to undertaking the trip,” she said.
PRASA told GroundUp that the long-distance trains services are affected by a “shortage of reliable locomotives” and that the company is working on a long-term plan “to secure reliable locomotives for the sustainability of the service”.
Support independent journalism
Donate using Payfast
Next: Benoni pensioners ask City to scrap millions of rands of debt
Previous: More than 20 dead and hundreds displaced in KZN floods
© 2025 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and GroundUp, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.
We put an invisible pixel in the article so that we can count traffic to republishers. All analytics tools are solely on our servers. We do not give our logs to any third party. Logs are deleted after two weeks. We do not use any IP address identifying information except to count regional traffic. We are solely interested in counting hits, not tracking users. If you republish, please do not delete the invisible pixel.