Passenger train could yet be saved

Passenger rail services were suspended in 2009 and the logic was simple: a struggling parastatal, saddled with an ageing fleet and problematic infrastructure, was forced to choose between its cash-cow being goods traffic and its charity case, being the passenger service.

At about P40 for the Gaborone-Francistown service, Botswana Railways’ justifiably felt that the passenger service was a luxury it could ill-afford. And at this point ends the parastatal’s innovation and that of its parent ministry. The ministry still has the infrastructure, the technical expertise, the market of eager passengers and the benefit of a monopoly, but innovation was the missing key.