South Africas Passenger Rail Agency says its on track to recover and rebuild the service and rail infrastructure in the country. This comes as the 200th new high-tech train is set to launch in Cape Town.
Transport authorities have also restored 31 of the 40 lines nationally, while nearly 300 damaged and vandalised stations have been refurbished.
Improved signaling, new trains that run more frequently and with greater safety. National Transport Minister Sindisiwe Chikunga says these are some of the strides being made in the overhaul of the countrys passenger rail service.
From an aging fleet and vandalised rail infrastructure in pre-Covid years to the 200th Electric Multiple Unit unveiled today. Chikunga is confident they will reach the goal to ensure affordable and safe public transport service.
When you are in the train the driver is able to see everything that happens in the train but also when the doors close you cant open them as the train is moving. That ensures the safety and security of the people inside. In each train, we have got a security officer who takes care of the people as we have them even at the station.
So weve tried everything possible to ensure that theres an element of safety, theres an element of security, but theres also an element of affordability and efficiency and the state-of-the-art trains that were making here in South Africa. And I want to emphasise this point, these trains are not imported, theyre made here in South Africa with materials that we get from South Africa, with artisans and engineers that are South African, and so this is a South African brand, the Peoples Train and were very happy about it, Chikunga explains.
Transport Minister updates on PRASA progress in Cape Town:Efforts to completely recover Cape Towns crucial Central line continue. Rail services were left in tatters due to vandalism, theft, and neglect, exacerbated by the mushrooming of informal structures on the line during the pandemic.
PRASA Regional Manager, Raymond Maseko says 890 families have since been relocated but about 4 000 more need to be moved for its complete restoration.
He says only 11 of the 121 train stations remain inoperative in Cape Town.
Currently in terms of the total fleet, we are running 48 train sets. the reason we are running 48 sets is because on the recovered corridors we still need to recover the signalling. For example on the corridor we were travelling on this morning, we used to run a train every 90 minutes. that is a train at half past five, seven o oclock and half past eight. currently, because we have recovered the signalling, we are running a train every 20 minutes. Im sure people were looking at the trains as they were passing up and down.
The rail agency is expecting to reach its critical load factor of 90 train sets for the province, resulting in a train every ten minutes by the first quarter of the next financial year.
