musiwa10: it was my idea.

Ogbomosho to ibadan dual road was my idea too.

Sibrah: Deserve means something bro, we deserve what our resource and labour can afford us and not just 'anything' that comes our way.

Sibrah: Deserve means something bro, we deserve what our resource and labour can afford us and not just 'anything' that comes our way.

KokoBeware:

How long and how much..will it take to build the railway system we "deserve"?? I think what they did is the best move .. revamp the old one and when investors see how profitable and attractive it is.. they will come in...
Beside If ROME was built in a day am sure GEJ would have used the same engineers cos that will guarantee him re-election...

seyi42k: This article is been eulogised now, I hope tomorrow when this same outfit brings up another unfavourable report you people will not turn back on them and start saying western agenda.

A Nigerian travelled from Kano to Lagos with horrible experiences and even interviewed other passengers and also took pictures.

Our collective psyche has been bullied into submission and that is why we will continue to manage and hail mediocrity. It was when my well-travelled bosses told me that Khartoum in Sudan (a desert mind you & at war) is far ahead of any city in Nigeria, that is when I knew we have celebrated this mediocrity for too long.

agabaI23: But another said his boss now pays 80k for 19 containers as against 750k. Do You know what that can do to the price of cement? That's a whooping 89% reduction in transport cost. Hang on to your negativity. It won't hold Nigeria back.

seyi42k: This article is been eulogised now, I hope tomorrow when this same outfit brings up another unfavourable report you people will not turn back on them and start saying western agenda.

A Nigerian travelled from Kano to Lagos with horrible experiences and even interviewed other passengers and also took pictures. People are castigating him for telling us his experience and for saying it as he saw it. They are telling him to rejoice that he was even able to take a train at all. Well, why won't we tell him to rejoice, after all our nation has been trying to produce 6,000 mw of electricity, that Heathrow airport uses daily, all these years without much success after sinking billions of dollars.

Our collective psyche has been bullied into submission and that is why we will continue to manage and hail mediocrity. It was when my well-travelled bosses told me that Khartoum in Sudan (a desert mind you & at war) is far ahead of any city in Nigeria, that is when I knew we have celebrated this mediocrity for too long.

theshadyexpress:


BRAKES let out a deafening screech and steam fills the station as the Lagos-Kano train ends its 30-hour journey. Hundreds of passengers emerge wearily from brightly painted yellow, green and white carriages. It may be sweaty, crowded and very late, but after a ten-year absence this revamped link between Nigeria’s two biggest cities is a welcome relief. Travelling the 1,126km (700 miles) at an average speed of less than 50km an hour with endless stops, it is no wonder the trip takes so long. But for most Nigerians the low fares are worth it. A second-class ticket from Lagos to Kano costs around $12, roughly a quarter of the price of a more treacherous bus ride. “Hundreds of people were waiting at Ilorin [300km north of Lagos] but there wasn’t enough space for us all,” says a mother trying to appease a screaming child on her hip. “I had to stand the whole way.”

The service was relaunched last month after improvements costing $166m. Nigeria’s railways, started in 1898, have deteriorated in the past 20 years owing to those old engines of decay, corruption and mismanagement. Nigerians’ domestic travel options are limited. Most cannot afford to go by air, so take to the roads. Overfilled lorries, usually packed with dozens of passengers sitting on cargo, precariously negotiate crater-sized potholes. One stretch of road, nicknamed “Bauchi or Death”, after a northern state, is littered with overturned lorries and cars.

As well as being dangerous, Nigeria’s woeful transport network slows the economy. A rejuvenated rail network could unplug one of the biggest business bottlenecks. In the short run, freight trains are the priority. The cost of transporting goods on passenger trains is prohibitively expensive. “The charge is almost impossible,” complains Jibrin Bala, a cloth merchant. “On our way here, we had to transfer our goods onto buses.”

The success of the Lagos-Kano route, however slow, indicates the demand for a modern rail network. There are plans to invest in rehabilitating lines along the eastern corridor between Port Harcourt in the south and Maiduguri in the north-east. There is even talk of monorails in a couple of cities. As people scramble on board the new train, it is clear that the Nigerian Railway Corporation will be puffing hard to keep up with demand.

http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21571481-renovated-railway-line-welcome-more-are-still-sorely-needed-slow

seyi42k: This article is been eulogised now, I hope tomorrow when this same outfit brings up another unfavourable report you people will not turn back on them and start saying western agenda.

A Nigerian travelled from Kano to Lagos with horrible experiences and even interviewed other passengers and also took pictures. People are castigating him for telling us his experience and for saying it as he saw it. They are telling him to rejoice that he was even able to take a train at all. Well, why won't we tell him to rejoice, after all our nation has been trying to produce 6,000 mw of electricity, that Heathrow airport uses daily, all these years without much success after sinking billions of dollars.

Our collective psyche has been bullied into submission and that is why we will continue to manage and hail mediocrity. It was when my well-travelled bosses told me that Khartoum in Sudan (a desert mind you & at war) is far ahead of any city in Nigeria, that is when I knew we have celebrated this mediocrity for too long.

seyi42k: This article is been eulogised now, I hope tomorrow when this same outfit brings up another unfavourable report you people will not turn back on them and start saying western agenda.

A Nigerian travelled from Kano to Lagos with horrible experiences and even interviewed other passengers and also took pictures. People are castigating him for telling us his experience and for saying it as he saw it. They are telling him to rejoice that he was even able to take a train at all. Well, why won't we tell him to rejoice, after all our nation has been trying to produce 6,000 mw of electricity, that Heathrow airport uses daily, all these years without much success after sinking billions of dollars.

Our collective psyche has been bullied into submission and that is why we will continue to manage and hail mediocrity. It was when my well-travelled bosses told me that Khartoum in Sudan (a desert mind you & at war) is far ahead of any city in Nigeria, that is when I knew we have celebrated this mediocrity for too long.

Omexonomy:
my broder dont forget we are developing
my boss pays 80 thousand by rail as against 750thousand by road for 19 containners from lagos to kano and you are calling it trash.[color=#000000]

fuke:

Shameful and disgraceful.
This kind of second world war train should not be running in Nigeria in 2013.

Revolva: Can you imagine -- from lagos to port harcourt...the locomotive have to reach kaduna ...first..before heading back south..
Yeeppa!!! Who designed such routes!!!!

Revolva: Can you imagine -- from lagos to port harcourt...the locomotive have to reach kaduna ...first..before heading back south..
Yeeppa!!! Who designed such routes!!!!

The service was relaunched last month after improvements costing $166m. Nigeria’s railways, started in 1898, have deteriorated in the past 20 years owing to those old engines of decay, corruption and mismanagement. Nigerians’ domestic travel options are limited. Most cannot afford to go by air, so take to the roads. Overfilled lorries, usually packed with dozens of passengers sitting on cargo, precariously negotiate crater-sized potholes. One stretch of road, nicknamed “Bauchi or Death”, after a northern state, is littered with overturned lorries and cars.

manny4life:

Where will the money for HSR come from? Do yall know how much it will cost for HSR? How many private investors around the world do you see investing in HSR network? Abeg, HSR is super expensive and only very few govts are able to build such like Asian nations.

Revolva: Can you imagine -- from lagos to port harcourt...the locomotive have to reach kaduna ...first..before heading back south..
Yeeppa!!! Who designed such routes!!!!

This article is been eulogised now, I hope tomorrow when this same outfit brings up another unfavourable report you people will not turn back on them and start saying western agenda.

A Nigerian travelled from Kano to Lagos with horrible experiences and even interviewed other passengers and also took pictures. People are castigating him for telling us his experience and for saying it as he saw it. They are telling him to rejoice that he was even able to take a train at all. Well, why won't we tell him to rejoice, after all our nation has been trying to produce 6,000 mw of electricity, that Heathrow airport uses daily, all these years without much success after sinking billions of dollars.

Our collective psyche has been bullied into submission and that is why we will continue to manage and hail mediocrity. It was when my well-travelled bosses told me that Khartoum in Sudan (a desert mind you & at war) is far ahead of any city in Nigeria, that is when I knew we have celebrated this mediocrity for too long.

Sibrah: Oga yelsew80 take am easy oh, you mean we should be celebrating this kind of service delivery when there is so much room for improvement? It is a positive thing in its self but then i think the trains should be used to support cargo movement and not humans. Nigerians deserve more irrespective of how many years we have been without trains and under who's govt we are experiencing the mini-revival of ous trains, afterall same fed govt is in charge of Fed inter-state roads and we all know the story.

cheikh: seyi42k[/b]



Gbam!+1000. I can confirm your bosses' observation. Mediocrity and general lack of quality in many spheres of our life in Nigeria has damaged our collective psyche indeed. Anywhere corrosive Corruption is as pervasive and natural as it is in Nigeria, taken for granted/accepted, you are bound to expect a people coerced to celebrate/accept rubbish in the midst of plenty. The amount of money used to rehabilitate the rail is actually less than the unaccounted so called "security vote" of our erstwhile Governors let alone that of the Presidency. The food budget is even larger than the rail rehab . Some of us may say half bread is better than none but that is not good enough in this day and age. . We must get a grip and see things in the right perspective not instinctively rejoice like demented freed prisoners and condemn those who refuse to accept mediocrity in whatever guise as the norm/standard.

ballabriggs:


All what he listed above was what lead to the death of the trains and it is the same thing experienced by that brother on his train ride, nothing has changed. How do you spend so much money and what you get is a crap service that will ultimately lead to the death of the trains?

We talk of continuous improvement. If service today is similar to what obtained before the death of the trains in the late 1990s, then I'm afraid, that which killed it in the late 1990s will ultimately kill it today. I expect reasonable people to see his story as a first step in problem-solving as he has identified a problem and then work towards finding solutions and improving quality of service. However, what we have are people looking for who wants "to bring them down", pathetic!

And that is why I say privatize the trains and let the NRC focus on maintaining and building the rail tracks. Take the NRC away from the Ministry of Transport, let it run independently of that 'Alhaji Minister'. Let it run like a business, driving quality and continuous improvement of service. Quality should be at the center of everything within the NRC. It should be a language and there should be a 'taken-for-grantedness'.