The Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa’s (Prasa’s) new commuter trains, to be introduced into the Metrorail network from 2015 onwards, would offer passengers a safer and more efficient way of travelling, CEO Lucky Montana said at a recent event held at Park Station, in Johannesburg.

Unveiling the features of the new trains, Montana stated that the metro coaches would boast an 18% additional loading capacity to reduce overcrowding and improve comfort. They would also offer universal access to accommodate the disabled.

For improved safety and to avoid passengers missing their offloading points, closed-circuit television systems would be installed in the coaches and on-board communication systems would continuously keep passengers abreast of the train’s location.

Montana said the coaches would also include a Metro Express train, similar to Metrorail’s current Business Express train, that would offer Wi-Fi services.

Prasa’s presentation on the new rolling stock came after its confirmation that Gibela Rail Transportation – a consortium com- prising French multinational Alstom and local engineering company Actom – had been awarded the R51-billion contract to supply 3 600 passenger trains to the utility from 2015 to 2025.

Delivery of test trains was scheduled for the first quarter of 2015, while operational trains would be received by the final quarter of the same year.

The contract, which was expected to create about 33 000 jobs, of which 8 088 would be direct, could form the first phase of a larger R123-billion recapitalisation programme to add 7 200 new metro coaches by 2035.

The Gibela consortium complied with Prasa’s requirement of a minimum 65% local content and had indicated that this would be increased to 69% by the second year of the contract. It would also provide maintenance, spares and technical support for the vehicles over an 18-year period to 2033.

Alstom north and central Europe and Africa senior VP Andreas Knitter confirmed to Engineering News that a factory would be constructed in South Africa and that manufacturing from this facility would start about a year after the first test trains had arrived from Brazil.

Knitter said manufacturing of the test trains would start in early 2014, after which they would be shipped to South Africa for a three-month testing period.

Rail Industrialisation

Prasa Rail CEO Mosengwa Mofi said the agency could have followed the “easier route” of simply buying the new rolling stock abroad and installing it locally, but that its aim was to execute the country’s bigger agenda – its industrial development strategy.

“Our cities are growing at a faster rate [and] the increasing urbanisation requires a modern, functioning public transport system. Major cities the same size as Johannesburg and Cape Town and those of the rest of the world require a cleaner transport system and we know that railways provide for that. So we have to invest in a railway system,” Montana stated.

He further indicated that Prasa would also embark on a radical transformation of the country’s rail infrastructure to accommodate the new rolling stock and that R1-billion would be spent on constructing four to five new depots by 2014, where the new trains would be maintained.

Montana also confirmed that Prasa had committed R7-billion over the next three to five years for new signalling systems in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape.

The agency recently awarded a R2.67-billion contract to global technology group Siemens for the modernisation of the Gauteng signalling system.

“We have also concluded our negotiations with Bombardier Africa Alliance for the replacement of our signalling system in KwaZulu-Natal, as well as our negotiations with the Thales Maziya consortium for the replacement of the Western Cape signalling system,” Montana stated.

Over the next seven years, Prasa would invest in excess of R17-billion in its national signalling upgrading programme.

Montana said all substations would be replaced to eradicate electricity supply security issues, which contributed significantly to delays.

He said, as part of its infrastructure modernisation programme, Prasa would also invest R500-million in renovating Park Station over the next three years. The station was currently the second-largest station in Africa, with over 160 000 people passing through it on a daily basis.

However, Montana added that the aim was for Park Station to become the biggest station on the continent by 2020 by increasing its capacity to accommodate over 250 000 people passing through daily.