*********** Prasa

This is the e-mail I sent Prasa, and they still choose to ignore the public's constructive criticism, so clearly not interested in improving and making the new trains safe, clean, and orderly. I also forwarded the email to the DA and the Cape Town mayor,

Dear Prasa,

This is about the 5th time in 2 weeks I am sending this e-mail. I can see it being received, but no one bothers to reply. This is the last time and then I am taking it public on Hellopeter and the likes.

We took the train from the Strand station to Cape Town train station recently. We are super excited and ever so grateful that our trains are running again. The experience was very pleasant, beautiful new and clean trains, and so glad to hear that eating, drinking, and smoking are prohibited. I'm also very glad about the strong police presence on the train. There must have been about 10 policemen congregated in the front. But that’s the problem, they sat there for the entire 2 hour journey chatting, not once patrolling up and down like they do constantly on the Gautrain to reprimand wrongdoers. At one station 2 women got on eating chips.

Coming back in the afternoon, the train was bursting at its seams, completely overloaded. Trains should run more frequently to avoid this. It was an uncomfortable journey back and many people sat eating. There was a man eating an entire packet of biscuits, messing crumbs all around him. There was also a woman eating a pie and again, crumbs all over the show. Another guy rubbed half his cigarette tobacco out onto the floor and got out to go smoke. When we got back to the Strand station with most people off, there were sweetie wrappers on the floor and a big oil patch where people had ground in the pie woman’s crumbs into the floor. Now, if the 10 police officers were doing their job patrolling instead of socializing in the front, this would not have happened. Had some unpleasantness taken place, they would not even be aware of it, nor be able to get to it in an overcrowded train. There should be 2 officers per carriage. If not, trains will soon end up unsafe, vandalized, and littered.

We also noticed a few shattered windows.

Please sort out the teething problems in order for safe and pleasant train commutes.

Kind regards Noleen Kemp