Remembering George Stephenson In Ghana

George Stephenson's locomotive came to mind when word was dropped about the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government's purchase of 1970 railway engines for the Ghana Railway Company (GRC).

One of the relics of the previous government was its painstaking efforts at rejuvenating the morbid railway system in the country. To put it bluntly, the railway system which served Ghana for so many years before independence and into the subsequent self-government period was virtually dead by the middle of the 70s.

The passenger, not forgetting the sleeper or overnight train service between Accra and Kumasi became a thing of the past, leaving the whole railway system in the country fit for a junkyard of dead railway engines. Scrap dealers only waited for when they would be given the green light to come and bid for the engines and related gears at public auctions.

As for the railway lines and sleepers, they have become targets of thieves over the years. To reverse the picture and rejuvenate the railway system, the Akufo-Addo government decided to set up the Ghana Railway Development Authority which birthed the few services as we have them today; the importation of modern engines currently running on the Mpakadan line being an evidence.

We recall how the NDC hired assigns to thwart government efforts at rejuvenating the morbid railway system. Ghanaians can recall when during a test run of the modern engines from Poland, a bus was deliberately placed on the line. The envious enterprise made expected headlines at the time.

With the gradual modernisation and even rejuvenation of the system, Ghanaians began to witness the developments as evidenced in the tangible operation of the Mpakadan line with 21st century railway engines and plans for the Western lines in high gear by the time the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government exited power.

Waking up to hear about the purchase by the NDC government of outmoded railway engine for burgeoning standard gauge railway triggers questions about what thinking went into the transaction.

Was government not properly advised prior to the transaction? We fret at the NDC government's obsession with sub-standard projects.

This reminds us of their decision to substitute sophisticated Mercedes Benz ambulances which were distributed throughout the districts across Ghana with funny ambulance rickshaws, which Ghanaians in their humorous mood have described as 'abobolance'.

We cannot afford as a country to show preference for the past when we have all the resources to move our country into the 21st century.

Information reaching us indicate that the railway engines under review are on the verge of being phased out, which prompts the question about future acquisition of spare parts.

We have cause to name the 1970 Mahama purchased railway engine after the inventor of the locomotive engine, George Stephenson, because they are outmoded and could have been part of the British Railway museum in England.

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