https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_Rail_Agency_of_South_Africa
Sike! It's April foools! I'm actually talking about LOCOMOTIVE trains, not trap trains
Right, greetings Dramastrags!
Today Imma talk a bit about some truly r-slurred trains drama from PRASA - the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa. Like ESKOM and most other public entities touched by the corrupting tendrils of the ANC ruling party, PRASA has slowly corroded in efficiency and worth over the past 25 years.
Even as far back as 20 years ago the corruption and inefficiency of ANC nepotism-elected PRASA leaders meant that all small and large businesses jumped ship from using our once proud railway system to transport necessary godds, to using private Trucking companies, which gradually became the main mode of transport of goods throughout RSA. It's also the reason much of our road infrastructure degrades so fast, and that there are so many potholes - too much heavy trucking over roads built never to withstand such heavy erosion, but town forced to rely on private trucking just to remain alive, cuz you've all seen how worthless ESKOM is - the same principle applies to PRASA.
You can read the article, but the short and sweet of it is that PRASA leadership under the ANC party, basically ran the fricking institution into the ground. The watershed moment for even letting the black public and the ANC admit that PRASA and the South African railway system for human and goods transport had gone the direction of the dinosaurs, happened back in 2015 when the public learned through a series of comedy events that PRASA's Chief engineer is a fricking r-slur , and that his credentials are faked.
CONTETX 1: PRASA orders new trains.
South Africa used to literally be able to build their own trains, just as easily as they built their own tanks, Ratels and reverse engineered Mirage jets from the French because they cucked the french, by only ordering a few, and being like sorry Froggies , we can build the rest on our own.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Cheetah
https://smokeongo.co.za/south-africas-forgotten-fighter-jet/
The point is under the Union of South AFrica, we were engineering wise even capable of building fighter jets holding their own against MIGs. The 25 years since up until 2015, when it became apparent South Africa's aging train cars, and our absolute lack of railway construction industry, meant that RSA would have to expend billions to import from Europe to revitalize our decaying Railway transport system.
The public was divided, but at least this meant we could actually transport many more people, since so many locomotives and their accompanying cars have literally rusted into disuse from lack of care and maintenance
CONTETX 2: The new very expensive trains don't fricking fit on many railways.....
So once the actual fricking trains and railway-cars arrived the shitshow began, as journ*lists uncovered pretty quickly that they don't fit, in spite of numerous warnings by the few and aging mayo engineers still working under PRASA till their retirement packages turned in, the dipshit dipfrick leadership still went ahead and ordered an astronomical waste of traincars that are not
And it's a disaster, the trains are designed according to Spanish/European standard, and they are too tall for like half of RSA tracks, they would literally scrape off the top of electrical wiring, and crash into the top of certain tunnels.
https://www.news24.com/news24/sas-r600-million-train-blunder-20150704
Luckily the media started making a big row about this terminal insanity, because the galaxy brained PRASA leadership would have continued to waste another FRICKING 3.5 billion rands to order more of the same shit that's incompatible for much of RSA's locomotive infrastructure. It's mindblowing the stupidity.
CONTETX 3:Public finds out the coloured guy in charge is unqualified.
https://www.politicsweb.co.za/politics/prasas-daniel-mtimkulu-only-an-engineering-technol
One of the opposition parties, the Freedom Front, aka the RSA equivalent of the chud Republican party did a very quick investigation and found the r-slur primarily in charge of this financial disaster, was not an actual engineer, but he occupied the chief fricking engineering post of a public organization of the entire country. A lot of journ*lists started crying but the fricker still wouldn't go to jail
CONTETX 4: Public finds out how FUBAR the South African railway system actually is.
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-04-13-how-prasa-was-looted-and-left-for-scrap/
It became apparent, the entire PRASA leadership was employed exclusively through BEE (Black Economic Empowerment), and that none of them obtained their roles through merit, the worse is that they had systematically looted much of the money meant for repair and maintenance over the years, that had led to the necessity for importing railway cars overseas (similar to the russians looting their army resources up until an unexpected invasion happened). Of course litearally nothing happened to these ghouls, because the black population of RSA had no political will to keep their elected leaders to standard, thus every consecutive corrupt leadership would just keep getting replaced with an equally corrupt and incompetent set of fools.
It goes on and on
https://mybroadband.co.za/news/government/190408-prasas-missing-billions.html
And on....and on....
https://www.news24.com/citypress/News/prasas-train-fleet-needs-brakes-20200203
https://ewn.co.za/2016/11/30/prasa-contracts-worth-r24-bln-investigated-for-criminality
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I love your SA posting, keep them coming
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Absolutely fascinating insight into the country. Feels like Empire of Dust where they had infrastructure but let everything rot through incompetence and corruption.
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I gotta watch that again so good
Imagine being berated by a mainlander Chinese and him being right
Itβs on archive.org https://archive.org/details/empire-of-dust_DVD_Quality
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I love this video because the asian guy wasn't even trying to be mean or bully him, he speaks to the black guy and shames him the exact same way a Chinese father would his own son for fricking things up.
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Is that black dude speaking fluent mandarin?
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Part of the tragedy of Empire of Dust is that the black guy is insanely talented but he's trapped in a shithole. He speaks fluent Chinese, French, English, and several African languages; he savvily navigates the corrupt Congolese bureaucracy; he manages an army of illiterate workers who don't even speak the same language. In America he could be a Rhodes scholar or a VP; in the Congo, the best job he can get is translator for a smug paver.
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And the US would totally take him, but imagine how hard that screws your country when you can't keep anyone with actual talent from leaving.
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Would the USA take him? It's not clear if he has anything impressive on paper, not even a formal education.
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I guess it would depend on a lot of things, but in theory countries are clambering to attract people like this.
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This movie seems like an African Rush Hour, only it's a documentary and they're both labourers, not cops.
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https://www.foxnews.com/world/south-africa-marks-freedom-day-apartheid-ended-25-years-ago
!nooticers
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Ordering the wrong size trains How r-slurred can you be
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It's more common than you think,
One month ago, Spain has spent β¬258 million on trains that are too big to fit in its rail networkβs tunnels.
In that case tho, the guys in charge resigned.
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That reminds me of Norwegian scandal where a Spanish engineering firm was contracted to lay new electrics for a rail line and it was all the wrong voltage and literally melted when the rail line was unveiled to their king lmao
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I think i see a trend here
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CAF π = Cheap As Frick
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PalestinePingsalot Alliteration 1yr ago #3908113 spent 0 currency on pingsYou get 14 days to make a return in the EU, could've been an easy fix. SMH my head. The europa.eu guide for consumer rights says you can't refund train tickets but nothing about trains themselves
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Watching South Africa turn into Zimbabwe far away in my safe North American home is just such a cozy feeling
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Please never stop the SA posting king
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Darn, Hong Kong also has its fair share of train (literal) drama. Maybe I should also make an effortpost later.
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Tbf the MTR is fricking amazing. Going from using to Underground to the MTR and back made me hate the bongs more than I thought possible.
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Jokes on you, I absolutely love trains! Riding them, photographing them, reading about them on the internet; trains are great!
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You fricking idiot, you should have called this "SA train drama" and trick people into thinking that somethingawful s were staging a coup on the forum or something.
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Wat
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Didnβt read any of that
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But did you upmarsey
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No
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It never crossed my mind that this would be about anything else than real mechanical trains. Sorry, your style and SA is too predictable
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The idiocy described was so great I almost couldn't believe it. Are you planning to get out there eventually?
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Snapshots:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_Rail_Agency_of_South_Africa:
archive.org
ghostarchive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
https://www.news24.com/news24/bi-archive/how-much-freight-is-being-moved-by-train-in-south-africa-2021-5:
archive.org
ghostarchive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Cheetah:
archive.org
ghostarchive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
https://smokeongo.co.za/south-africas-forgotten-fighter-jet/:
archive.org
ghostarchive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
https://www.news24.com/fin24/opinion/opinion-sas-rail-system-is-broken-this-is-how-it-happened-and-how-to-fix-it-20211126:
archive.org
ghostarchive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
https://mybroadband.co.za/news/technology/148355-its-confirmed-prasas-afro-4000-trains-are-too-tall-for-south-african-tracks.html:
archive.org
ghostarchive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
https://www.news24.com/news24/sas-r600-million-train-blunder-20150704:
archive.org
ghostarchive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
https://www.politicsweb.co.za/politics/prasas-daniel-mtimkulu-only-an-engineering-technol:
archive.org
ghostarchive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-04-13-how-prasa-was-looted-and-left-for-scrap/:
archive.org
ghostarchive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
https://mybroadband.co.za/news/government/190408-prasas-missing-billions.html:
archive.org
ghostarchive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
https://www.news24.com/news24/SouthAfrica/News/transport-minister-fikile-mbalula-paints-grim-picture-of-prasas-affairs-20220322:
archive.org
ghostarchive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-09-21-crisis-point-prasa-disastrous-state-revealed-in-comprehensive-data-analysis/:
archive.org
ghostarchive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
https://www.news24.com/citypress/News/prasas-train-fleet-needs-brakes-20200203:
archive.org
ghostarchive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
https://www.news24.com/citypress/Business/will-mbalulas-war-room-be-able-to-fix-prasas-core-problems-20190811:
archive.org
ghostarchive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
https://ewn.co.za/2016/11/30/prasa-contracts-worth-r24-bln-investigated-for-criminality:
archive.org
ghostarchive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
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WRONG, feels like shit when we cant even buy trains that fricking fit
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It sounds like its ANCs country now, bub, youre just living in it
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I donβt think the fake credentials are even a good excuse for the trains being the wrong size. Like even my dumb butt would would make sure the multibillIon dollar purchase Iβm about to make even works before I buy it. Anyways good drama as all ways.
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Lmao it's amazing seeing the drama and daily frickups I grew up with translated and condensed into dramaspeak. pls keep them coming
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rare Saffer?
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Expat/dirty African immigrant now but yea
I've wanted to make effortposts like yours before but it's honestly really hard because you have to give a bunch of context & show how incompetent the govt is. It's not like "incompetency" in first world countries. And if you don't keep it interesting no ones gonna read the stuff that happens there which is like, shit you couldn't make up
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Yeah it's unexplainable - the sheer overpowering magnitude of incompetence, arrogance and stupidity isn't translatable to places like amerika, because the magnitude and scale of corruption isn't even in the same plane of existence
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Dont worry, Americans will understand soon. Give it 15 to 20 years.
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I'm optimistic: I think America will install an authoritarian to fix things before it gets this bad
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Your SA stories are fascinating because yurop is quickly reaching that nonsense point too.
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Choo choo! Hop on Boerd, my kaffirs!
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How are the traps in saffa?
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Doesn't hold a candle to Taiwan or SEA countries
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This is the most neurodivergent post yet
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That person is Coloured?
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too long
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Literally my shortest effort post so far
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PalestinePingsalot kaamrev 1yr ago #3908136 spent 0 currency on pingsSorry but as a zoomer who was raised by twitter, I literally can't read anything over 50 words. I had to stop and watch a tiktok halway through this c
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New Zealand has a similar problem- Why put anything on when runs door to door? I was debating this with my commie cousin and she was shilling rail, I asked her if she had any idea how much effort goes into loading and unloading trains. Even when you have your goods that have traveled by train to the general place they need to go, they still need to get loaded onto a truck to get to the end user... Her mind was blown, but she still insisted on trains everywhere
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It's good to have trains as at least as an alternative, else you become like Brazil where every 2 years truckers hold the federal government hostage by striking.
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Every single one of your South Africa articles is a great chance to plug my Substack. Thanks king!
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PalestinePingsalot 1yr ago #3908140 spent 0 currency on pingsThese SA posts are some of the best stuff on rdrama
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This is the Republican parties fault.
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I honestly don't understand how you can take living in South Africa.
Brazil is about as corrupt but with 90% less fricked up race relations and it still makes me go on a weekly basis
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