Train


Railways, train and railway station have always been part of my childhood fantasy.

I grew up in UMUAHIA in the early 90s.
As a kid, l get to see the train station whenever I accompany my mother to BEACH ( or Quarta Ibeku, lol, that is the name we call the umuahia main market). There you can see trains leaving and arriving. My mother, (now of blessed memories) served as a tour guide.

She would explain the difference between the Mass and the Express trains,

the different conditions of train travel of her days,

the coaches

and never forgot to mention the brutality of the then train police (station masters, you know the one in Subway surfers' game).

These stories we listened to every time she returned from PORTHARCOUT.

My mother's business involved taking fruits and vegetables from Umuahia to Portharcout, sell them and buy dry fish and local gin(first eleven). This she achieved conveniently because of the availability of train travel.

When I see the train tickets that she usually returned with, I dream of going on a train ride.

This dream have to stayed with me for more than 20 years. So far (hummmm), traveling with train has not been part of my resumé until last week!

I had traveled to Abuja about two weeks before. After a day in Abuja, I experienced a serious back pain. I have to visit a pharmacist.
During the consultation, I mentioned that my back pain could be as a result of my rough and long journey from Port Harcourt.

That was when the pharmacist told me how he travels to Port Harcourt by train via warri.

Wow! Here's a chance to make my dream of traveling on a train come true!

" You mean am?" I quizzed.

"Yes na. You go enter motor from Abuja to Itakpe for Kogi state. Na there the train station dey"
Wow!
When it was time to leave Abuja, I followed the pharmacist's advice for a more convenient way of land travel.

I left Abuja around 9 am on Sunday, I boarded a car going to Lokoja. Then another one going to Itakpe train station (close to Okene).
I arrived Itakpe, just at the nick of time. The journey from Lokoja was painfully slow that I feared that I had missed my ride.
We got around 2.30 pm. The train was there to my surprise, Ordinarily, I would have missed the train because I was told earlier that the departure time was 2:00pm.
For whatever reason, it had changed to 2.45pm. To say that I was very happy, would be an understatement.

I bought my ticket and boarded immediately. I paid #3000 for a full journey from itapke to Ujevwu in Warri.
I entered coach 24 as was shown on my ticket and sat down on seat No.26.

The coach wasn't filled up as there were vacant seats. So I chose one of the vacant seats.

The seats are comfortable with enough leg space. This is not the train I used to see as a child.
This is modern train, the central AC is top-notch. See cold. At a point I had to fetch my pullover from my bag, and wore it. There are 2 TVs in every coach. Everywhere is neat and well cared for. See flexing for Naija!.


We made brief stoos(5 min. max) at many stations along the way way. Ajaokuta was the first. Then Otogbo, Agenebode, Uromi, Ekehen, Igbanke, Agbor, Abraka, Akpara and finally at Ujevwu in Warri, it took us close to 5 hours, my beautiful journey ended.

I wasn't the only one who enjoyed the trip. I saw a lot of other commuters taking pictures happily. The looked pleased.I took some too.

We got to Ujevwu around 8:30pm, too late to proceed to Portharcout that night.

At the station, there were Keke, bikes and taxis available to convey passengers to the town or wherever they could find buses heading to their destinations.

That was my first time at Ujevwu . I needed to be careful considering the security situation in our country at this time.
I stood for some time with my luggage, thinking.
Then, hailed a motorcyclist.

"My man. You fit carry me go where I go easy get bus wey dey go Port Harcourt for morning?"
"I will take you to the Roundabout" he said. I joined him.

On the way, I asked if he could take me to a guesthouse that is not too far and that is affordable, he said "no problem".
He took me to a guesthouse. Fortunately I got a room (at 6500, 4500 rate is fully booked) there and passed the night.
By 7:00am, I was already heading to Agofure Park where I boarded a bus for #3000, straight to Portharcout. I arrived around 11:45am.


In summary, I will say that it was an adventure. The journey was stress-free to some extent. I have learned a lot from the journey. Next time, it will even be better.

You want to go on a train trip?
I can help you out information.

I can now add, train ride as part of my Waka. I am qualified to guide anyone that wishes to test train journey to Abuja.

I will be posting more pictures.

May her soul Rip

The train.

The couch.

Good...

but come oh see how we're celebrating train station that is already artifact level in other countries.

tomorrow they will comission another toilet project to string the zom bees along...

the crumbs strategy

Cool

Nice experience.

I really hope we up our maintenance culture.

If we continue this lackadaisical attitude towards maintenance, we may soon see that train within 3 years being so old and problematic that you'd think it was the train used in the 60's.

Go back in 2years time and see if your experience will remain the same.

The journey was long, sha. I will try this in future for the experience.

Ujevwu is in udu not Warri

Not everywhere in delta is Warri. Warri is very tiny.
Please take note