—
tazara — tazara — tazara ...
Am I this one?
Which one?
This one!
Or — even this one? …
—
tazara — tazara — tazara ...
Does it still matter who is playing what
role? The roles seem to have been
apportioned; we are the extras!
Like in the real world …
In your world, may be — not in mine!
I have never been an extra. My interest
as an actor is growing with each
railway-mile.
Some odd guests who appear and disappear
…
Not that odd, my dear; the one or the
other may be even useful with regard to
my plans. For example, I really would
like to know how the interest was
mobilized to invest in the construction
of a railway-line across the Andes, to
transport what? Wine! … To be
financed by Britons who suddenly became
connoisseurs of wine … ? Who, the
heck, got this splendid idea?
I understand why the Chinese met the bill
for this TAZARA though; that was at a
time when they not really calculated
expenditure against profit, when they did
everything with their basic tools, with
hammer and sickle … Today, with
slogans of solidarity you can’t get
any steam to run the engine. Even my
plumber would drop the tools — but
he got me on the right steamer … my
RINGELNATZ …
A
sorrel grew once on the
ramp
Was rooted deep in gravel
The passing trains would
make it clamp
Saw many people travel.
And stood in dust and
gulped the smoke
Consumptive and subsiding
A broken plant, a meagre
joke
Its heart and ears in
hiding.
Saw trains vanish, saw
trains appear
Poor sorrel was a dreamer
Saw all the railways’
rumbling gear
Never saw an
ocean-steamer.
|
|
Mr. Moon thinks it was bad
business, but he does not want to miss
the experience. Exaggerated solidarity
offered even to build access roads to all
railway stations — would be one wash
up, said our hammer- &
sickle-planners. They had overlooked the
factor „national pride“. This,
said one of the two black Heads of State
and waved his white handkerchief
indignantly, should be done on our own.
Handkerchiefs remained in use for all his
countrymen once they intended to approach
one of the TAZARA-stations. Potholes and
mud-pitches remained in thirty years as
sweat-producing side effects of
TAZARA-travels …
Solidarity is no good for business, says
Mr. Moon
TANZANIA – ZAMBIA – RAILWAY – AUTHORITY
One railway-network administered by two
countries! Not the best idea …
Mr. Moon’s predecessors built for
Messrs. Nyerere and Kaunda — that is
the one with the white handkerchief
— two magnificent wings, left and
right of the station‘s domed hall in
Dar-es-Salaam, one for the Tanzanian
administrators, the other one for the
Zambian twins. The CEO‘s office is
being occupied sometimes by the left,
sometimes by the right wing. To make sure
that the one or the other train is
rolling according to schedule, an
inconspicuous office in the back houses
our man who never left and who is waiting
…
And Mr. Moon’s expert keeps his ear
on the tracks. If anything is rumbling
within Africa’s rail-network, he
will notice. And he has heard something
up in the North before others noticed
— in Gaddafi-country!
The
project-business there is booming; the state will
have to invest exploding profits from
oil- and gas-exports into the
rehabilitation of infrastructure, Mr.
Moon’s expert predicted. Since 1969,
nothing moved on rails, he said, they’ll
need a new railway-line. — Bingo!
One hundred and sixty-three kilometres
from Tripoli to the Tunisian border,
including sixteen stations.
Thanks to the splendid hearing-device of
his expert Mr. Moon got an order valued
at hundred and seventy-seven million
dollars.
And because his specialist has heard
something again, I am sitting in this
compartment with Mr. Moon’s latest
instruction. I have never to loose
contact with this one there, that
blasting white fellow. Supposedly, he
received an important hint from his
plumber, code-name: RINGELNATZ …
That is what Mr. Moon is interested in.
Our specialist thinks, with this hint he
may have an advantage!
This has to be changed, says Mr Moon.
—
tazara — tazara — tazara ...
Am I this one?
Which one?
This one!
Or — even this one? …
—
tazara — tazara — tazara ...
Was I to step
into independence or should I
continue to trot along towards the final
goal of ending up as a well-established
pensioner? That was the decision I was
faced with some twenty years ago. I never
regretted the step. I left my job at
Deutsche Bundesbahn, at the German
Railways. I would have remained there as
a civil servant whose ideas would have
continued to shrivel on the slow train
through the offices of bureaucracy. I
became independent with the setting up of
an own rail-track building company. I am
a trained welding-expert, and my company
developed a specialised machine to weld
rails at the spot.
With one of these, this TAZARA-train
would not jump anymore from track to
track …
—
tazara — tazara — tazara ...
… you had better believe me! We
demonstrated it in Germany, in Spain, in
Sweden, in Israel, in Taiwan …
Of course, that costs! Our equipment is
capable to move on road and on rail. An
on-board-generator produces enough power
exactly there where it is needed for
welding. With such a machine, we can weld
daily up to seventy rail-tracks.
Worldwide, we operate twenty of such
machines … Compared with traditional
methods we can save up to forty per cent
of costs …
Luck had pointed the switch in my favour
for the second time. It came when the
Berlin Wall fell. I had just founded my
company and now there was, in the Eastern
part of Germany, a whole rail-network to
be rehabilitated. It earned me a fortune,
an estate with a lake and my own
riding-hall …
And now? The third chance!
On business-trip in Africa …
On the tracks of another genius who was a
railway-freak …
Click!
|
