Park Station turned into a pit of filth

The tiled floors are blemished with dark stains, uncollected rubbish is strewn all over, the escalators are not working and the public toilets are dirty as the two-week-long strike by the cleaning staff employed by a private company takes its toll.

According to a Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) employee, the striking workers are demanding that a company contracted by Prasa to provide cleaning services employ them on a permanent basis.

Calls to Prasa’s Nana Zenani and Sipho Sithole yesterday went unanswered, while South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) national spokesperson Papikie Mohale said the strike had not been sanctioned by the union.

Garbage piles up on the side of the street near Park Station in Johannesburg, 8 May 2019. Picture: Neil McCartney

The iconic Park Station – the largest railway station in Africa – serves as a major transport hub in Johannesburg and plays a pivotal role in the integration of transport modes by connecting inner-city services.

Located between the central business district and Braamfontein, it is a central railway and bus station, with the southern terminus of the Gautrain rapid-rail service located underground adjacent to the existing main line station.

Transfers that take place there include Metrorail train services from Ekurhuleni, Soweto and Roodepoort.

Park Station also provides for Shosholoza Meyl, which is for long-distance railway travel, Rea Vaya and Gautrain services.

The station is a city within a city and a hive of formal and informal business activity.

In opening the redeveloped and revamped Park Station in 1997, then president Nelson Mandela said Johannesburg deserved “a central station of which it can be proud, reflecting its contribution to our country and our region as a transport hub on which workers, rural people, business people, tourists and others converge from all directions”.

“This station, at the heart of our greatest city, has mirrored the changing character of our country over the past 100 years.”

Commuters who travel through the station daily warned that if the cleaners’ strike was not resolved what was once a source of pride for Mandela would degenerate further.

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