With commuters who used to pay R180 for a monthly train ticket now having to fork out R100 for daily taxi fares after railway lines were closed during the Covid-lockdown, the Roodepoort Record had a look at the state of their local train stations amid government promises that the Randfontein-Johannesburg line will be up and running by the end of the financial year.

Built to defy the clocks, 130 years of maintained service at Roodepoort’s railway stations have been reclaimed by the elements after commuter activity was brought to a halt as part of the government’s coordinated response to the global health panic of early 2020. Three years down the line, one of the most sophisticated rail networks on the African continent is now little more than a graveyard of economic aspirations.