Trains are messed up again

Yet again I heard several announcements this morning at Woodstock station in Cape Town about trains being delayed or even cancelled. The time table at the moment is not ideal at all for those who get off at Esplanade station and walk the one block to Woodstock station to avoid the chaos and the masses of people at Cape Town station.

Heavy Cape Town traffic due to railway strike

The nationwide railway strike this week has been causing some heavy traffic in the morning and evening here in Cape Town. All of the train commuters had to find alternative modes of transport. I came with my car this week and it turns out to be rather expensive what petrol concerns. Sitting in traffic double the time than it should take is also no fun. I am at this point in time considering getting a bicycle and ride to work while getting some much needed cardio done. In the evenings the trains are also sometimes unreliable by not always showing up. In the evenings it would probably be a little bit faster to get home by bicycle than train due to the 25 minute walk in the evening if I do not manage to catch the 18:15 train leaving Cape Town.

Countrywide train strike on Monday

This coming Monday (10 May 2010) is going to be a countrywide train strike. There will be thick traffic on the roads for days. It will be expensive for petrol. Metrorail was already refunding all of the monthly train tickets. At least two unions are striking over a wage dispute.

Barefoot running on tar road in Cape Town

Yesterday evening I decided to run to the train station from work. I ended up running barefoot (no shoes on). The idea was to see what the difference was compared to having shoes on that can slow me down due to weight. The other plan was to also get my feet used to that kind of thing for excercise reasons. On fairly smooth road surfaces this works fine, but I do not want to do this on a rough road surface.

The detour from work to the train station due to locked gate, ended up being my new best time for that route and I managed to get to the train on time. Then I switched over to another train. Once I got off there, I started doing the same running again because of clients and I had to cover 2.6 kilometers. After a big more than 1 kilometer, my feet started complaining a bit.

Running from Mowbray to Salt River station again

For two weeks I have been working rather late. As a result of this, I was always trying to catch the 19:30 train at Salt River station, because the next one is a long wait. My work is in the suburb of Mowbray and there is the entire Observatory suburb between my work and Salt River station. Over time, I have been getting better in regards to running the entire trip. It is a lot of effort and the ground to run on is not smooth and it has some slopes.

Walking from Kensington to Monte Vista in the rain

Two days ago, I had the fun and joy of falling asleep on the train and getting off two stations too early. The station that I got off at was called Kentemade which is in the Kensington suburb. The station looks nearly identical to the Monte Vista station that I normally get off at. The train stopped there and I woke up, both sides looked more or less correct based on what I could see. This was the last train for the evening. By the time I realised the station was wrong, the train was moving again.

After that story, I neded up walking toward Voortrekker road to head in the direction of Monte Vista, but I had to pass Facreton first and then through Vasco suburbs. Kensington itself can be a maze, especially at night. After many wrong turns, I finally got to Voortrekker road, then the rain started.

Much walking later with the rain coming and going, I finally reached Vasco, then heavy rain hit. Fortunately that was the last on the route. Since I was running about 40% of the route, the entire trip took 1 hour and 20 minutes.