After hiking four days and three nights on foot and looking forward to going home, 40 cadets from the SA Military Youth Cadets Academy were stranded with no money and no transport at Simons Town train station.
The cadets set out on a week-long coastal hike excursion mountain retreat survival camp from 1 to 4 April from Muizenberg to Simons Town.
Founder Dr Randall Petersen said that they had an agreement with Prasa and already bought return train tickets from Simons Town to Cape Town, but when they reached the end of their excursion and waited several hours there were no trains.
Dr Peterson says: “What a great day-and-night coastal hike it was. We walked from Muizenberg to Simons Town, sleeping on the dunes and mountains, and now we are looking forward to going home. I phoned Prasa in the morning and they said it is all in order.
"The children were so excited to go home and to our dismay after waiting we found out there were no trains from the security officer who wanted to chuck us off the station. Luckily our load was a bit lighter because all the food was up.
"We had no cash to take a bus from Simons Town to Retreat train station where the buses were running. Our train was booked for 1.45pm, a carriage with security.
"But thankfully it was still light because if we did not have anywhere to go on Friday night we would have been stranded without food or shelter.”
Dr Petersen said that he alerted all the parents and hired four cars to assist and had to pay R2 000.
He adds: “I phoned Prasa but they were having an attitude, nobody was professional. Some of the parents came with cars to assist us with the children and drop them at their various destinations.”
When Daily Voice reached out to the Passenger Railway Agency of South Africa (Prasa), spokesperson Zino Mihi said a message was shared on the commuter social media groups.
The message read: "Power failure between False Bay and Fish Hoek confirmed as Panto Hook up on T0106 outside Fish Hoek."
"This was the message shared on commuter WhatsApp groups and to our other social media platforms. These are technical glitches that are as a result of many factors [for example] environmental.
"In instances like these, customers are advised to seek other alternative measures as our technical teams investigate the incidents."