Pretoria - Time-saving, comfortable and convenient – that’s how Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) boss Lucky Montana described the new AFRO4000 locomotives.
“Passengers must be happy about the trains because of their reliability,” he said. Prasa on Monday took journalists for a ride on the AFRO4000 to dispel claims that it was not suitable to travel on some local railway tracks.
The agency had been dogged by controversy after it imported 13 of 70 locomotives at a cost of R600 million from Europe. It had been alleged that the locomotives were too high and ran the risk of damaging overheard electric cables while travelling on railways in other parts of the country.
With journalists and Prasa officials on board, the blue train departed from Pretoria station and travelled towards Akasiaboom station north of the city.
It took off at a relatively slow pace and on the way to the destination the train passed through some bridges unhampered.
It travelled at least 20km before heading back to the CBD.
The trip was part of Prasa’s public relations exercise to dispel claims that the locomotives had a roof height of 4 264mm. It was suggested the maximum height for diesel locomotives may not exceed 3 965mm.
Prasa rail executive manager Mosenngwa Mofi refuted the claims about the height, saying they were wrong. He said the claims were aimed at “undermining a very important investment to improve the transport system and change the travelling experience of South Africans forever”.
“Prasa wishes to reiterate its firm view that the height between the minimum contact wire and the roof of the locomotive far exceeds the minimum acceptable clearance height of 150mm as prescribed and safe for operating under electrical contact wire with a minimum height of 4.5m,” said Mofi.
On board, Montana told journalists that over the past five years Prasa had been on a massive modernisation programme, procuring new trains, upgrading stations and improving the signalling system.
He fingered some losing bidders of the R3.5 billion project for being behind the negative reporting in the media.
He said some of the documents used to write stories were “stolen” from the agency and it was now the subject of a police investigation.
He said a total of 20 of the locomotives are diesel and 50 are hybrid. More locomotives would arrive in the country in the coming months.
The locomotives were being tested according to the engineering requirement that “we run them for 3 000 free miles”.
“After the test, the locomotives will be officially used for commercial purposes,” he said.
Concern was raised that the short trip from Pretoria to Akasia-boom was not going to “disprove” the fact that there were other parts in the country where the train movement could be inhibited.
Prasa spokesman Moffet Mofokeng said the solution would be to take the media on a longer trip to Cape Town.
Another concern was about the ageing rail infrastructure that could affect the train as it moves along the railways.
Pretoria News