Residents and Roodepark School staff combine to clean up Hamberg train station
Abandoned buildings had become dens of criminality and drug abuse.
Community assets inspire pride and a sense of responsibility.
Hamberg train station underwent a clean-up operation thanks to residents and Roodepark School. Over at least five days, ground staff from the school and the residents of Hoy Street cut the vegetation which had grown very tall, and cleared the waste and litter from inside the station buildings. Learners, staff, and pedestrians were left vulnerable to attacks while navigating the station making it a critical mission to intervene.
Roodepark Deputy Principal, Chris Coetzee, noted how the clean-up became essential as the unkept mess had created a window of opportunity for vagrants seeking refuge in the buildings, drug addicts who use these premises to hideout, illegal dumping and general criminal activities in this deserted area. Five staff members spent five days chopping away at the tall grass and removing drug paraphernalia from the filthy brick shells.
Hoy Street resident, Kurt Edwards, has watched the gradual decay of the station from his home nearby. He has been documenting the area’s troubles and has brought residents together to monitor the area.
“It broke my heart to see how they vandalised and destroyed the station. My community means a lot to me and I don’t want to see it ruined,” said Edwards, who once enjoyed the regular site of the trains.
Security guards are now in place at the station, as well as many others on the line as the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa prepares to revive their Metrorail services in the coming new financial year.
Coetzee notes how the station was a vital node for staff and learners and Edwards states the deployment of security is far too little, far too late. Concluding many have before him.
“We realised that nobody is coming to help us so we have to do it ourselves,” Edwards concluded.
