Fellow Nairalanders,
The Federal Government of Nigeria, through the Honourable Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, has said that the Standard Guage Railway line from Lagos to Ibadan, would commence a free train ride beginning from Monday, 2nd December, 2019, to March, 2020. This is in preparation for the commercial operation expected to commence on this rail corridor come April, 2020, by which time the entire construction work is expected to be completed by the Chinese contractors handling the project.
Details of the released information is available on this thread https://www.nairaland.com/5556844/rotimi-amaechi-announces-free-rail with a follow up thread here regarding the modalities of the operation of the free train ride https://www.nairaland.com/5558403/how-enjoy-free-lagos-ibadan-train

In order to keep abreast with the development, update and factual assessment of this free train ride by the majority of Nigerians who are very far away from Lagos, Abeokuta and Ibadan (yours truly included), we therefore call on Nigerians residence within the cities above, especially Nairalanders, to please make themselves available for this free train service by the Nigerian Railway Corporation NRC, so as to getting a first hand impression on this multi billion dollars rail project.

Embarking on this noble appeal would afford Nigerians the opportunity to note whether the services to be rendered on this gigantic project is commensurate with the public funds expended, especially as this project is being financed with a huge loan from the Chinese government.

Therefore, Admins and Mods of Nairaland, kindly do justice to move this thread to the Front Page FP.

God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Courtesy: luluosas

The free ride gets just 6 passengers in the first two days of commencement. See details here https://www.nairaland.com/5562483/free-lagos-ibadan-train-rides-record

Gradually, the free train ride is gathering momentum as reported here https://www.nairaland.com/5566778/Lagos-IbadanFreeTrainRideafter
Nairalanders, please kindly update us if you ever take the train ride.
God bless Nigeria.

The bolded part sweet my belle well well. How about you?

Published December 5, 2019

…Some passengers beg to stand

After days of low patronage recorded on the Lagos-Ibadan standard gauge free train service between Monday and Wednesday, passengers besieged Iju Station on Thursday to enjoy the ride to Ibadan.

A correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria who monitored the train service on Thursday observed that the number of passengers outnumbered available seats in the train.

NAN reports that a sizeable number of intending passengers had been waiting since 11.00 a.m for the train billed to depart Lagos for Ibadan at 4:00 p.m.

Before 3:00 p.m., a huge crowd of intending passengers had gathered at the station and filled all the available seats in the train with two executive coaches.

Confusion arose when those, who had earlier in the day registered their names to travel on the train, returned a few minutes to 3:00 p.m. to discover that the train had been filled up to capacity.

More intending passengers started to troop into the station and begged the officials of the Nigerian Railway Corporation to allow them to stand in the train.

When the entire station was about to be thrown into confusion, the NRC officials had to bend the rules to accede to the request of those who wanted to stand.

Speaking to NAN on phone on the huge turnout of passengers, the Lagos State Railway District Manager, Mr Jerry Oche, expressed surprise about the sudden turnout of passengers.

Asked if the NRC intended to increase the number of coaches to accommodate more intending passengers, Oche said that the service would increase from December 21.

He said that instead of one return trip daily from Ibadan to Lagos, it would be twice daily.

It was reported that only six passengers turned up for the ride on Monday and Tuesday together in Lagos.

A Senior Station Master at Iju, Mr Sunday Abu, told NAN that people were only just getting to know about the free ride, thus the number of beneficiaries had started improving each day.

According to him, on Wednesday, the train moved 14 passengers to Lagos from Ibadan and returned 31 passengers to Ibadan.

(NAN)