As the high-tech train emerged from a tunnel and whipped across the Johannesburg suburbs at 160 kilometres an hour, the passengers whooped and burst into cheers, clicking their cellphone cameras to capture the scene.
“It’s something I’ve only seen in the movies,” shouted Lindiwe Hadebe, one of the 10,000 passengers who bought tickets on Africa’s first high-speed train on its launch day.
“It’s like America,” she said. “It’s so fast, so neat and tidy. I’ve never experienced it before.”
For the passengers, it might conjure up images of Hollywood films, but the $3.3-billion, 80-kilometre train project is actually a Canadian contribution to the World Cup. The trains and technology were supplied by Bombardier Inc., the Montreal-based transport company, which speeded up its construction to ensure that it would begin service in time for the World Cup’s opening match on Friday.
The train had a near-flawless debut on Tuesday, causing a buzz of excitement among South Africans and arriving World Cup soccer fans. It took only 15 minutes to zip smoothly between Johannesburg’s international airport and the business district of Sandton – a 20-kilometre journey that often takes an hour in heavy traffic – and the tickets were priced at one-third of a normal taxi fare. The line will be expanded next year to link Johannesburg and Pretoria.
Officially it was not a World Cup project, and the contract deadline was late June. But Bombardier, which is earning about $2-billion from its share of the project consortium, opted to accelerate the project – at a higher cost – to ensure it would reap the publicity bonanza of the World Cup, which is attracting an estimated 350,000 visitors to South Africa.
Many of the passengers on the first day were gawking sightseers who wanted a glimpse of the long-awaited Gautrain
“This will revolutionize public transit in South Africa,” said Katherine Honer, an account director at a Johannesburg advertising agency, who took time off from her workday on Tuesday for a pleasure ride on the high-speed train with a group of work colleagues.
“I think it’s amazing, it’s awesome,” said her colleague, Nicole Betz. “It’s definitely going to save time – the traffic to the airport can be a nightmare.”
Not everything was perfect on the first day. There were long queues at Sandton station, where confusion surrounded the ticketing procedures. The huge demand from passengers caused a crash of credit-card connections at the ticket machines, and the queues moved slowly. But dozens of staff circulated around the station to help the novice passengers.
Critics have questioned the $3.3-billion cost of the Gautrain project, which was approved by an earlier South African government and quickly became inflated. Its first phase is serving primarily the affluent Sandton suburb, and its ticket prices are unaffordable for South Africa’s poorest citizens. Opposition leaders have suggested that the money would be better spent on fixing the pothole-ridden roads. The train won’t solve the transportation headache of getting soccer fans to the 10 World Cup stadiums in cities across the country.
But many passengers said the cost was defensible, especially since it could lure people away from their dependence on cars. “It’s a long-term investment, and we need a public transport system for a big city like Johannesburg,” said Themba Mthombeni, chief executive of a corporate travel agency, who was on the train for its debut.
“To be honest, this project is not necessarily for poor people. But these people on the trains have cars, and they’re going to clog the roads less, so the poor people in the mini-bus taxis are going to travel faster.”
He, too, was wowed by the 160-kph ride. “It’s unbelievable,” he said. “It’s smooth, fast, clean and safe. It could be anywhere in the world.”
