I enjoyed Mboneko Munyaga’s recent piece in The Arusha News on the SGR and agreed with his sentiment. I too have travelled on the new train and found it splendid. My main criticism is that it doesn’t travel to Arusha. Arusha to Dar es Salaam is quite an ordeal.
Of course flying isn’t too bad but that will set you back a bit. You can get a good deal by coach and they offer a very good service these days but even so, 9 or 10 hours cramped into a seat, however comfortable, is an exercise in endurance.
I was therefore delighted when the old railway line was recommissioned. I was impressed by Magufuli’s strategy. Rather than the multimillion dollar, overseas investment of the SGR, it was a multimillion shilling investment in men with shovels restoring the original, German line and re-painting the station buildings.
As a result, the train bounces along at a fairly pedestrian pace. The price is good though. The 2nd class sleeping fare is cheaper than a bus fare and it is quite fun. The Restaurant Car provides reasonably priced food and beer and there is even a DJ. Furthermore, since it travels through the night the 19 hours can include a reasonable amount of sleeping.
However, the last 70 kilometres is a killer. You reach Kidomole, which is essentially Bagamoyo at first light. From there it takes a further 5 or 6 hours for the train to laboriously trundle a route of about 110km around Dar, 80km of which is alongside the new SGR track.
To emphasise the tedium of this, on my SGR journey to Dodoma I caught the 16:00 train which slid sleekly west on schedule. At Pugu we overhauled the Arusha train 20km into our journeys. That train had taken about two hours to travel the distance we covered in 10 minutes!
I don’t know why the last 100km of this route is so painfully slow but couldn’t the TRC solve the problem by terminating the Arusha service at Ruvu. Then run a dedicated shuttle service from Ruvu to Dar Station which would only take about 20 minutes?!
You may not share my enthusiasm for the old train but it has to remain an option. Flying is beyond the means of the majority of travellers and as the roads get progressively more crowded and congested travel times will only increase.
The railway line offers an alternative, which should be preferable if TRC could streamline the service. Tanzania needs more routes like the Dodoma SGR but until then, can’t we get maximum benefit from what we already have? You can also take your bike on the old train.
