Synopsis

Hutchinson:SHUNTED, a documentary film about memory, perception and reality in a rural South African railway town.
Told by current and former residents, the story of the town tracks the history and decline of South African Railways through the years of Apartheid and into the post 1994 democratic/Mandela era.
As they tell their stories, the social and economic impact of the deterioration of the railways on the lives of the town’s residents is revealed.

In the post 1930s Depression era South African Railways was central to the Apartheid project in providing training and jobs to poor whites, bringing them out of poverty, while blacks were ignored. The railways became the single largest employer under Apartheid rule until changes in technology, the economy and transport legislation brought unforeseen and irrepairable damage to the railways system, and the towns and people around South Africa dependent on that system.
By the end of the 1980s, and some years before the first democratic elections, these changes, compounded by government corruption, had crippled the Railways. In the post 1994 democratic era, the damage continued.