₦airaland Forum

sarutobie:
this is what I call destroying ignorance and fiction with cold hard facts..bless you

Thanks.

I had to step up and post because this is not the first time I have seen Nairlanders belittle the present rehabilitation of the railways because they see bullet trains in China or Japan. The ignorance I see on this forum is really outstanding.

davitogreat:
The way some of you think baffles me.
Lets say Jonathan Builds this. Who In Nigeria is going to ride this? Nigerians are already complaining that the lagos to Kano route is too expensive and that one just costs about 2000 naira or 11 dollars. Now you want to build a train like this. Do you know how much it costs to ride this train in china?
Let me enlighten you a little. If you want to take this train from lets say beijing to shanghai the cheapest you pay is $95 dollars. While Business class is nearly 300 dollars.

Again tell me who in Nigeria is going to ride this if it gets built here? or will the Government spend billions to subsidize the train costs for the masses?

Nigeria should not think of such trains until the populace has the spending power to support it.

Spending power comes from where?

common u can suck better than dis! efulefu...
how many bomb explosion occurred during atiku era?

Goddex:
1) How many rail lines did APC Atiku build while in govt?

2) How many did APC Tinubu build as gov of Nigeria's richest state?

3) How many did APC Buhari build while in govt?

You bunch of APC hypocrites are seriously sick for asking a two month old baby that is yet to crawl to start running.

Iroh88:
This has always been my problem with some of you people. Your utterances lack common sense. Anyone who criticises the president must either be an APC member or an "Aboki".

Smh.

Your worries

the key line should be efficiency. why should a train travel 36hrs from Lagos to kano. it is sheer waste of man power. we need to build railroad tracks with the intention of using it to move bulky goods. another one should be built to link Maiduguri to port Harcourt see port.

davitogreat:
The way some of you think baffles me.
Lets say Jonathan Builds this. Who In Nigeria is going to ride this? Nigerians are already complaining that the lagos to Kano route is too expensive and that one just costs about 2000 naira or 11 dollars. Now you want to build a train like this. Do you know how much it costs to ride this train in china?
Let me enlighten you a little. If you want to take this train from lets say beijing to shanghai the cheapest you pay is $95 dollars. While Business class is nearly 300 dollars.

Again tell me who in Nigeria is going to ride this if it gets built here? or will the Government spend billions to subsidize the train costs for the masses?

Nigeria should not think of such trains until the populace has the spending power to support it.

u joking my dear. why would it be affordable for d Chinese but becomes unaffordable for Nigerians. we canot afford good airport, nigerians canot afford 24hours elecricity o. let dem b building keke & okada, because dat is what Nigerians can afford.

Goddex:
1) How many rail lines did APC Atiku build while in govt?

2) How many did APC Tinubu build as gov of Nigeria's richest state?

3) How many did APC Buhari build while in govt?

You bunch of APC hypocrites are seriously sick for asking a two month old baby that is yet to crawl to start running.

all dese TANoids are not innovative. do a different concept and stop copying and pasting APC brainchild

correctguy0900:
all dese TANoids are not innovative. do a different concept and stop copying and pasting APC brainchild

He ask questions instead of to answer his questions this is what you came up with pathetic

Horus:
https://assets.inhabitat.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2012/11/maglev-japan-train.jpg

A train in Japan capable of traveling at speeds over 310 mph!

https://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Nigeria_Loco_in_Brazil-2.jpg

A train in Nigeria

Interesting, please what is the GDP and budget of both nations.

Op no serious at all.ordinary water u no get,road no dey.12hrs of power supply in a day is still a tall dream and you are here asking your government to build bullet abi na jet train in a country where civil servants are paid $100 a month.

davitogreat:
What about my comment does not make sense?
Nigeria is a developing country that abandoned her railway for decades due to corruption and military rule. The present government is reviving it. Some people have chosen to criticize it by comparing the current trains to the bullet trains in china. I gave my reply about why their criticisms are foolish.


Or do you believe the present government should have constructed bullet trains? If so How do you think they should have gone about it?

I wonder how some Nigerians reason. China has an economy capacity of over 20tr dollars and that of Naija is just above 500b dollars and you expect us to build such. How would it sound to run from lagos to kano at 50k on such trains when to pay 2k on the newly constructed ones is just a problem. You should have asked them when NRC was moribund for over 2decades they never talked but when the present govt is investing billions into it they begin to complain. And moreover, most chinese states are self sufficient unlike all the states in Nigeria that depends on revenue from FG.

amAZEing:
Stop comparing China with Nigetia. NOT just a global player but the No 1 Economic Player in the World.

leave d ode. Let hm compare nija with heaven

When will Nigerians make our own trains?

Goddex:
1) How many rail lines did APC Atiku build while in govt?

2) How many did APC Tinubu build as gov of Nigeria's richest state?

3) How many did APC Buhari build while in govt?

You bunch of APC hypocrites are seriously sick for asking a two month old baby that is yet to crawl to start running.

^^^Well in fairness to Jakande, he had plans to build one in Lagos. Everything including the financing was ready, only for Buhari to come in via a coup and veto it!

davitogreat:
Thanks.

I had to step up and post because this is not the first time I have seen Nairlanders belittle the present rehabilitation of the railways because they see bullet trains in China or Japan. The ignorance I see on this forum is really outstanding.

Have you ever taken a train ride within Nigeria on any of these so-called rehabilitated trains? Please do so, and come back to share your experiences. You will then realise that those who have been raising dust on the rehabilitation have a valid point.

Punch Newspapers: On Nigerian trains, passengers are like refugees (2)

In spite of the much touted successes of the Federal Government in reviving the hitherto ailing Nigeria Railway Corporation, the majority of the passenger coaches are old, giving travellers little or no comfort.

Investigations by our correspondent revealed that some of the coaches in use are actually decades old. In fact, the first-class coach which this journalist boarded from Lagos to Ilorin, Kwara State, on February 7, was the one previously used to ply the Omi-Adio to Bodija intra-city mass transit in Ibadan, Oyo State, in the early ’90s.

NRC Assistant Director, Public Relations, Mr. David Ndakotsu, corroborates our correspondent’s findings as he notes that some of the coaches are indeed as old as 20 years.

Shameful facilities

“Yes, we have coaches that are about 20 years old. But we don’t have any coach that is older than that,” Ndakotsu tells our correspondent.

As expected, the majority of the factory-fitted facilities on many of the coaches have broken down, leaving the corporation with no options other than to improvise.

For instance, the air conditioner, which is the only luxury available to passengers on the first-class coach this journalist travelled in, could not be enjoyed. It has packed up; while the two make-shift split ACs hung on the walls of the coach adjacent to each other only blew raw air without any cooling effect.

“The Nigeria Railway Corporation could do better than this, though. It is already over one year since it began the inter-city rail transport operations but things don’t seem to have progressed,” Sunday Oyeniran, a passenger on the first class coach, laments.

Oyeniran, who was travelling from the Iddo Terminus in Lagos to Inisha, Osun State, regrets paying an extra 60 per cent over the regular N560 fare for the economy class.

“I haven’t enjoyed the extra N340 I paid for this first-class ride. The coach is as good as not having an air conditioner,” he laments as he wipes off the sweat on his face.

A visit to the seven other coaches on the train, which was economy class, also reveals the harrowing experience of the second-rated travellers.

The population of passengers on each of the economy class coaches far outweighs those on the first-class facility. While the single class coach seats only 60 passengers, each of the seven economy coaches has 90 seats.

But the economy facilities are usually crowded, as they are the coaches where railway officials cramp travellers whenever they carry passengers more than the train’s sitting capacity.

Apart from the overcrowding the majority of the overhead fans were not functional.

Harvest of dust

On one of the economy coaches, only two of the fans were working, forcing travellers to throw open the windows of the coaches to forestall suffocation.

But the travellers’ self-help discretion also comes with its disadvantages. As the Ilorin-bound train covered distances, specks of dust from the countryside soon took over the coaches, with many passengers forced to cover their noses in a bid to stave off the dust.

Frequent travellers came prepared for the challenge, as a handful of them were seen putting on face masks. However, the first timers were at the mercy of the dust.

“I wear face mask not only for preventing dust but to also contain the offensive odour emanating from toilets,” a middle-aged man who declines to give his name says.

The state of many of the toilets and bathrooms on the coaches are nauseating, to say the least. Apart from their dirty state, some of them have their doors damaged, depriving users any form of privacy.

Even the booking terminal at the Offa Station was in a derelict state, as it lacks basic aesthetics. The majority of th­e stations also have no loudspeakers to communicate with passengers, while some of the stations are usually thrown into darkness at night as they have long been disconnected from the national grid.

Suffering and smiling

Mrs. Esther Ademola joins the train at the Abeokuta Station en route Osogbo, the Osun State capital — one of the stopovers on the Lagos-Ilorin route.

The woman in her 50s and her aged husband were returning home after a visit to one of their children in Abeokuta.

The coaches were filled to the brim, as the train, which took off at the Iddo Terminus, Lagos, had picked up extra passengers at the Agege and Ijoko stations before getting to Abeokuta.

Ademola was boxed in the far right corner of the small compartment in-between the first class and the seventh economy class coach. She sat on her luggage.

“We were lucky that my aged husband was able to get a seat. A Good Samaritan gave up his seat for him. At least, I was also able to get this space to rest my legs,” Ademola says.

One of her regrets, though, is the intensive itching she experiences on her skin as a result of the overcrowding.

She says, “As you can see, the windows are always open because of heat, while the glass covering of the entrance is damaged. This makes dust and other elements such as dry leaves to find their way into the coaches.

“Sometimes, the wind blows the devil’s bean plant into the coach. When this happens, passengers virtually run berserk, as they are forced to scratch their bodies due to the burning effects of the devil bean plant!”

An Associate Professor of Economics, University of Lagos, Dr. Olufemi Saibu, in a chat with our correspondent, wonders if any member of the Federal Executive Council would be willing to travel by rail, considering the unflattering state of facilities and services.

Saibu, whose research interests are in the area of urban transport, public finance and economic development, says it is imperative for the government to increase expenditure towards the total overhaul of the railway system.

He notes that an efficient and effective railway system will help in opening up communities, reducing cost of doing business, increasing the profit margin of entrepreneurs, thereby creating new jobs, expanding existing businesses and helping in better urban management.

He says the government can liberalise the railways with a view to bringing about efficiency in the system.

“We have to change our current use of the old locomotives and coaches by switching over to new technology. We cannot continue to use the old technology that has been rejected by those who invented them.

“Government needs to increase its expenditure on railway infrastructure and encourage the private sector to come into the business,” he adds.

Read the rest of the story here: http://www.punchng.com/special-feature/on-nigerian-trains-passengers-are-like-refugees-2/

correctguy0900:
u joking my dear. why would it be affordable for d Chinese but becomes unaffordable for Nigerians. we canot afford good airport, nigerians canot afford 24hours elecricity o. let dem b building keke & okada, because dat is what Nigerians can afford.

China has so many dollar millionaire.