On a recent Friday afternoon, 30-year-old Sidumiso Nyoni took the train from her home in rural Nyamandhlovu, Zimbabwe, to the industrial city of Bulawayo to visit family. It's a distance of only 25 miles, but she says the roads are in such bad shape that the train is the only option. The ride isn't long, but the schedule is completely unpredictable.
"The train doesn't have a specific time at which it comes," she says. Sometimes she says she'll arrive at the station for a 7 a.m. train and "it ends up spoiling the rest of your day, because the train comes in the afternoon."