Opinion | Trains and names

South Africa and Mauritius, two of Africa’s most sophisticated economies, share one thing when it comes to railways.

Both networks have suffered: ours thanks to theft, neglect, corruption and mismanagement while Mauritius completely lost its network of tracks when a decision shortly before independence in 1968 led to them being lifted.

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Much of the track was reportedly sold as scrap, some accounts saying it ended up in Israel. The justification was that road transport was more efficient.

Today, traffic is dense on the island’s road but an efficient bus service serves the country’s 1,3 million people well. Among the new vehicles in the fleet are colourfully-painted electric buses, some featuring peacocks in their artwork — gifts from India.

A smart, modern light rail transit system — called the successor to the Mauritius Government Railways — was launched in 2019, with India’s financial and engineering help. It silently snakes through the 26km between the capital, Port Louis, and the second city, Curepipe, costing all of 55 rupees for a one-way ride.

That’s not quite R20! Until recent efforts to turn our collapsed railways bear fruit, riding the Metro Express can be added to the list of attractions in Mauritius, along with the beaches, the mountains, the coloured sands and the underwater world!

There are views of the Moka range: volcanic mountains with Ebene, Mauritius’s cyber-city in their shadows and served by a short spur from the main line. There are some interesting town and station names along the way.

Vacoas is named after an indigenous tree on the island, traditionally used for basketry, rope and mats. Barkley takes its name from the British governor, Sir Henry, who was in office between 1863 and 1870.

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While Mauritius was under his watch a hurricane struck, dislocating the railway system, writes TV Bulpin in Islands in a Forgotten Sea.

“Every station save the terminus lost its roof. Bridges were destroyed, including both 126 feet spans across the Grand River, and workshops and engine sheds simply burst asunder.”

The hurricane also threw up debris from the seabed, creating a four acre (1,62ha) island at the entrance to Port Louis harbour, Barkly Island.

Then there is Vandermeesch station. Shivers ran down my spine as I remembered the story of a South African conscript captured by Swapo and later exchanged in a Cold War prisoner exchange at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin: Sapper van der Mescht.

I’ve never heard of him having had any link to Mauritius but memories of descriptions of his prison cell in Angola that I read, ran through my mind one night somewhere between Mauritius and South Africa: in one of Africa’s least advanced economies — Madagascar. I was miserable about my bike needing some repair work when I reached Maevatanana, the dirtiest, hottest place on the Great Red Island.

I checked into the filthiest hotel with iron bars on the holes that served as windows and poured water over my body as I lay on a dirty mattress. In the morning I saw, in a rubbish dump outside, the worst sign of misery and poverty: pigs and children rummaging through the rubbish together.

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I called my room “Sapper van der Mescht’s cell” and, once a bike mechanic had done a sterling job on my bicycle in his workshop under a tree, I raced out of Maevatanana dreaming of home comforts I would enjoy a month later.

But also fearing that had I been one of those kids rummaging in the rubbish, I would have been an infant mortality case. If they’ve made it to their late thirties, they have my respect. My trip was in 1992 when I was in my early 30s!

But back to the Metro Express line in Mauritius. Vandermeesch station could be named after Henri Theodore Vandermeesch, a 19th-century painter and decorative artist linked to Mauritius’ colonial-era architecture, and he is mainly remembered today for one very specific reason: the painted dome of the Port Louis Theatre.

It looks stunning in pictures but at present the building is covered in scaffolding. The end of the line in Port Louis is close to Aapravasi Ghat. That means “immigrant landing place” in Hindi and it’s where indentured labourers arrived by boat, mostly from India.

Today, the ruins of the stone buildings where they were processed and first housed form a Unesco World Heritage Site.

The legacy of its name spills across the road to Immigration Square, now the heart of Mauritius’s efficient bus system. They fan out all over the island, charging fares like 44 rupees (R15,40) to the northern tip of Mauritius at Cap Malheureux, 30km.

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Drivers sometimes seem to tackle the island’s narrow roads at breakneck speed. There is a strict bus etiquette in Mauritius: let passengers alight before you try to board.

No smoking, eating or drinking on the bus. But if you get hungry, food and beverage are never far away once you get off. It’s rare for there not to be someone in sight selling street food: rotis, dhall puri, baguettes, tamarin- and almond-flavoured cooldrink among them.