Outeniqua Choo Tjoe clarification

[John Ashworth]

MEDIA STATEMENT

April 17, 2009

MEC Garth Strachan clarifies Outeniqua Choo Tjoe situation

“The Outeniqua Choo Tjoe report, entitled Feasibility Study for the Future Viability of the Outeniqua Choo Tjoe, was handed to me on March 17, 2009.

“This followed a study commissioned by the Department of Economic Development and Tourism and completed by a private sector company after a long process of engagement with stakeholders, including local municipalities, in a Southern Cape Steering Committee.

“Arising from this report, the Department of Economic Development and Tourism made recommendations to me as the MEC of Finance, Economic Development and Tourism.

“The Outeniqua Choo Tjoe is a tourist icon in the Province and we would like to save it. Accordingly, I have written to the Minister of Public Enterprises to recommend certain steps for the new incoming national government.

“As a result of the process outlined above, the Provincial Government of the Western Cape has developed businesses cases for revitalisation and upgrading of the Outeniqua Choo Tjoe.

“The proposal is to establish a high level team comprising delegates from national and Western Cape departments and public entities that will develop attractive investment opportunities based on the feasibility studies. These would be marketed domestically and internationally.

“If possible this would include a tender or request for interest process to allow private sector investment and involvement on either one of the two possible lines: the George/Mossel Bay line or George/Knysna line. The investment opportunities and the criteria - including black economic empowerment, job creation and community tourism - would be defined by the team as part of the process.

“Obviously the investment product or products will be more attractive if an operating steam train has the requisite staff in place at the time of a request for proposal or tender process. I understand that current losses to Transnet are of the order of R850 000 a month. My appeal to the national government includes a request to keep open the line until March 31, 2010 to allow the process to unfold and a decision be taken by November 2009.

“Time is of the essence. Stakeholder consultations, by their nature, are often time consuming and this long process has placed added pressure on efforts to save the Outeniqua Choo Tjoe. Nevertheless I am confident that with the co-operation of the national government, efforts to save the Outeniqua Choo Tjoe can succeed.”

Ends

Issued by the Oryx Multimedia
On behalf of the Office of the MEC Finance Economic Development and Tourism.
For further information contact MEC Garth Strachan 083 454 6667

[Derek Walker]

I am not sure if that is good news or bad news, usually these feasiblity studies take ages, and by the time they are completed the whole ball park has shifted and its too late anyway. I sincerely hope that they can keep the train viable until the study has taken place and that any decision made is a feasible and sensible one.

[Dylan Knott]

They are only going to make a decision in Nov 2009? Then they still have to repair the line and still put all infrastructure in place so a train can actually run.

Why does it take such a long time?

[Justin Miles]

Took a fantastic video this Friday of the Outeniqua Choo-Tjoe at Klein Brak, Great Brak, Outeniqua siding and entering George.
Have to purchase the video editing software first then upload to Youtube.com

Hopefully a local or foreign investor can step up and take over the operation and make it profitable.
I wonder what the price tag is for the OCT, maybe an investor will ask local business to assist too.
Man this is really really sad for this tourism icon to go, Voorbaai with money could becoms the local
workshops for the new business with routes operating up to Lootsberg Pass, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth.

The Sothern Cape offers scenic routes and you can tie this in with a trip with 2 foot gauge from Avontuur to
PE. Hopefully Spoonet do not put a spanner in the negiotation process.

Blowing off steam - The bitter end

SA’s official museum railway will close in June unless an operator with good credentials — and money — can be found, writes Paul Ash.

In the wet winter of 2006, an avalanche of rock, mud and splintered trees thundered into the valley of the Kaaimans River and buried the spectacular George-to-Knysna railway under a mountain of debris.

A few kilometres eastwards, at Swartvlei, flood waters rose up and drowned the railway, washing away embankments and leaving the track hanging in the air.

As a temporary measure, the Outeniqua Choo-Tjoe was diverted to the steeply-graded and far less scenic line between George and Mossel Bay.

Three years later, the railway is still closed, while engineers, consultants, government officials, railwaymen and local tourism operators tussle over its future.

The repair bill for the Knysna line is estimated at about R70-million and Transnet, the railway’s owner, has had enough.

This is the second flood in a decade to close the line. In 2005, floods in the cutting above Victoria Bay carried off whole chunks of track. Trains were stopped for months while engineers repaired the track and attempted to redirect the river to prevent future floods.

The things that make the railway so attractive — the lakes it flirts with on its 67km journey, the high bridges over rivers and lagoons, and its steam locomotives — have proven to be its undoing. It was an expensive railway to operate, bleeding Transnet of around R850000 a month, according to Garth Strachan, former MEC for finance, economic development and tourism in the Western Cape.

There are many cuttings and embankments, and seven major bridges. The steam locomotives are labour-intensive machines with voracious appetites for coal, oil and water — a load of good-quality coal for a single trip to Knysna costs about R3000.

Transnet has vowed to shed all its “non-core” businesses — such as heritage operations and passenger trains — to focus on freight. Earlier this year, with the railway’s future still hanging in the air like the ruined track over Swartvlei, it announced that the steam-hauled tourist train would cease running at the end of April. Thirty jobs, mostly fitters and locomotive crew based at the main shed and workshops at Voorbaai, would be lost.

Transnet’s sour press release lit a rocket under Western Cape tourism officials and local operators, who reacted with alacrity and applied pressure to keep the train going. Transnet agreed to keep the steam train running until the end of June, in the hope that local government and tourism people could come up with a viable plan to save it.

In early April, Strachan said the Western Cape government had looked at various strategies to save the train and empower local communities at the same time.

“The Outeniqua Choo-Tjoe is a tourist icon in the province and we would like to save it,” Strachan said.

The Western Cape government had appointed a consultant to investigate whether the line to Knysna could be repaired, how much it would cost and whether there was a viable business case for the railway. The report has still not been made public and, now that the national elections have swept the DA to power in the Western Cape, the Knysna line and the future of the Outeniqua Choo-Tjoe has become someone else’s headache.

Tourism operators and rail fans are hoping that Helen Zille’s men will succeed where the previous lot of officials failed — to restore services to Knysna.

The new man in Strachan’s hot seat is Alan Winde, who promises that the new government will do everything it can to save the tourist train: “I will exhaust every avenue available to me to ensure that the Outeniqua Choo Tjoe will stay in operation as it is a special feature of the Garden Route.”

But reopening the line is only part of the struggle. Tourist railways by their very nature are often marginal businesses with scant cash reserves.

Worldwide, even successful, heavily-patronised tourist railways depend largely on unpaid volunteers — engine drivers and firemen, cleaners, track-workers, ticket-sellers, conductors and people to staff platform tearooms and restaurants.

Track and locomotive maintenance is expensive, and, given the scale of the civil engineering works on the Knysna line, it is unlikely the railway will be viable without a subsidy. Looking after the bridges alone will require very deep pockets, and the floods that have wiped the line out twice in a decade are surely going to happen again.

It is, however, an opportunity to do things differently. Even since the railway became Transnet’s museum line in 1991, it was run like a government department instead of a business. The tourist train has never run on Sundays — even in peak holiday season — and passengers were often treated as little more than self-loading cargo.

Making a go of the railway will mean hiring people who understand the tourism business to run and market the train, and reverse years of neglect and erratic marketing.

One solution being considered is a truncated operation between Wilderness and Knysna, which would allow for a more intensive service. A shorter route would also be more attractive to people looking for a short day out.

Either way, the railway is a valuable tourist attraction. In the right hands, it could be a boost to not only established tour operators, but also to the communities that live alongside the tracks.

[Luca Lategan]

This was the last steam outpost in South Africa, it would really be a coal-black day for all people in South Africa should the desition ever be taken to abandon the George-Knysna line.

My very first memory is of the blue leatherette in a Tjoo-Tjoo coatch when I was two years old. I had the privaledge of travveling on that line only once more and it was wonderful, well, it's the only steam train I've ever travelled behind. The sound of Tootsie echoing over the lakes near Wilderness is something that nothing else can match.

Knysna is full of 'rykgatte' there MUST be some of them willing to make a contribution towards the fixing of the line!