This was one of many things that black people inherited from whites in 1994, when whites voluntarily handed over political power to blacks. Clean, safe trains. By the middle 1980's more than half of all the rail tracks in the whole of Africa - the largest continent on Earth - were in South Africa, and daily in use too. On those rail tracks ran decent passenger trains with cheap train tickets, and cargo trains that transported large quantities of cargo for cheap.
Photos above are the vacation photos of an amateur photographer, a pensioner at the time as I understand, taken of the Trans Karoo train. Look at the perron, no litter. Look at those green faux leather seats, no holes, not torn up, no graffiti. Quite the exact opposite of how it's today.
After blacks took over the management of South Africa, the Trans Karoo was renamed Shozoloza Meyl, and went from there into the dumps. Rail tracks getting stolen. Trains set on fire. Trains breaking down with every single journey because of incompetent maintenance. No railway police anymore, thefts, robberies, assaults, and even murders on trains becoming common.
