Train Church 1986

"Foot-stomping and gyrating in song, prayer and petition, a multi-disciplinary church service in progress in a Soweto/ Johannesburg/ Soweto bound train /1986"

Soweto trains are not known for their safety. A train journey is undertaken with a mixture of determination and dread. Never mind the discomfort of the jostling, the pickpockets and the crush in a crowded train coach. Add to this, irregular train schedules, the railway police who are not there to serve or to protect you. This anxiety comingles seamlessly with daily worries associated with the immediate ride where it blends in with other unpleasant memories of train disasters, gang warfare and general hooliganism in a politically unstable climate and a country trawling through a second state of emergency. 

Train church as a social phenomenon appealed to me for several reasons. It captures two of the most significant features of South African life: the experience of commuting and the pervasiveness of spirituality. The system of commuting to work did not evolve naturally for the black majority.

It was enforced through removals, resettlements and geographical zoning. Its progeny begins in the migrant labour system.

Let me explain my feelings at the time of undertaking this project. At first I found the commotion created by the church annoying because it prevented me from snatching a few minutes of much needed sleep. I worked as darkroom printer in a remote place outside the city, near Lanseria Airport. This entailed that I leave home very early and arrive back late. It involved a complicated means of commute that involved a taxi, a train, another taxi and then a hitch ride to arrive at work.

This sudden religious ecstasy struck me as odd. This display of energy breaking into song, dance accompanied by bells and hands clapping is a spectacle to watch. These office cleaners, clerks, factory workers and general labourers enjoined in a cacophony of song, drumming, preaching and prayer in a catharsis of spirituality in a moving landscape on their way to work.