It’s late, it’s wet and could take months and a heap of money to fix. An engineer’s plan for sorting out the Gautrain tunnel water problems indicates this could take 10 months and could cost up to R100 million.
This week, officials from the province and the concessionaire dodged requests for comment.
The R28.1 billion high-speed train is a month past its extended starting date of June 28, and there has been a dispute between the province and the concessionaire over the water problem; whose responsibility – and thus expense – it is; and how to fix it. There is no clarity on when the train will be fully operational.
Bombela, which builds and operates the Gautrain and must fix the water problem, said it would wait to make a joint announcement with the province later this week.
The province’s Gautrain Management Agency (GMA) CEO Jack van der Merwe would not discuss the delayed start, saying an announcement would be made tomorrow. “We’re still negotiating with Bombela.”
On Monday, GMA spokeswoman Barbara Jensen would not comment on whether penalties were being levied for the delay.
The problem is the seepage and inflow of water into the tunnel between Park station, in the Joburg CBD, and Rosebank.
The Railway Safety Regulator issued a safety compliance certificate for the Gautrain earlier this month.
“The water seepage problem is not an immediate threat to the safety of operations,” said Letsane Rathaba, the regulator’s general manager of safety assurance.
“It has met the minimum safety requirements.”
However, the water problem means the tunnel does not meet the minimum standards in the concession agreement between Gauteng and Bombela.
The agreement states that “there shall be no discernible flow of water through the tunnel lining” and that the tunnel must be sufficiently watertight to ensure the safety of the power supply, the maintenance of the track geometry, and that the hydrological conditions around the tunnel are not disturbed. There may not be more water inflow than 10 litres per minute per 10 metres.
A dispute resolution board recently ordered the Bombela Concession Company (BCC) to do the remedial work.
Bombela’s tunnel remedial works plan, drafted a few weeks ago, identifies the problem area as sections about 1.2km long between Park station and the E1 emergency shaft, and about 1.1km long between the E1 and the E2 shafts.
Costs are not listed, but the plan refers to the need for a bond to be provided by Bombela to the province, and suggests R100m.
Detailed costs will be worked out after the work is planned, and the plan refers to the need for an estimated price, “including all mark-ups typically provided for on this project by the concessionaire”.
The work involves extra grouting for the tunnel, including boring holes up to 4m deep to inject grout.
The plan estimates three months to design and plan the work, then six to eight months to do the work, finishing at the end of May.
This assumes that the work will be done after hours, working four or five hours a night, which has been argued over between the province, the BCC and the Bombela Operating Company (BOC), which will operate the finished railway.
The province proposed a phased opening to allow the Gautrain to run between Rosebank and Pretoria, which would involve sealing off the Rosebank-Park station section.
The BCC wanted to open the Gautrain fully and do the remedial work after hours.
A third option is to run the Gautrain while the remedial work is prepared, then close the relevant section when work starts.
The BOC objected to the after-hours work option.
“At the beginning of the trial run, it took four weeks to get rid of the dust present in the tunnel as a result of the works. We therefore believe that dust would become a daily safety issue, as it would be unreasonable to expect that every day the dust generated by the works is taken out of the tunnel at the end of the engineering hours,” it said.
The track positions could be affected by nightly work, so would have to be checked every morning. - The Star