Commuter trains will not return to full service until March or April next year.
The Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) executives, with transport minister Fikile Mbalula, announced this yesterday as they presented the company’s plan aimed at bringing train services back to full operation.
In Gauteng, the following major routes will be among the first to be opened – Mabopane to Pretoria, Leralla to Johannesburg, Naledi to Johannesburg, Pienaarspoort to Pretoria, Saulsville to Pretoria, Pretoria to Kaalfontein, and Daveyton to Johannesburg.
In the Western Cape three corridors have been prioritised while in KwaZulu-Natal four have been identified. In the Eastern Cape, the East London to Berlin line will also be given priority.
Seven inter-provincial lines, including Johannesburg to Durban and Johannesburg to Musina, will also be reopened.
Prasa said expenditure would increase from R57.3bn in the 2020/2021 financial year to R72.5bn in just three years. The substantial share of this money will be spent on fixing railway infrastructure, stations and improving security as the rebuilding process takes place.
A total of 108 railway stations will be rebuilt in the current financial year. Prasa plans to spend about R900m just on station improvement.
Trains, railway stations, overhead track (OHT) equipment and substations will all be rebuilt simultaneously to ensure speedy implementation of projects. A panel of contractors is being appointed to achieve this.
“It takes 10 months to repair the substations... Where we do the repair of the overhead track equipment only, we need a duration of about eight months. The repair of the substation and the OHT will be running parallel. That is why we are forecasting that by March next year the lines will be opened. March next year... the trains will be running,” said Fana Marutla, chief executive responsible for infrastructure at Prasa.
Prasa CEO Zolani Matthews said the number of stations that are in a poor condition increased from 66 in 2019 to 250 this year. Of the 250, 90 of those stations are in the Gauteng south region that includes the Soweto corridor.
“We are planning in the next month to reintroduce more rail services in line with the minister’s pronouncement in his budget speech. In addition to the current services on the operational lines in Gauteng, we will add the Daveyton-Germiston line,” said Matthews.
“While the production of new trains at Gibela [plant] is progressing well, the current rolling stock will still be in use and to this end, we have recently awarded an ad hoc maintenance contract to ensure, in the short term, we recover trains that have been damaged and vandalised.”
Matthews was joined by Mbalula in witnessing the extent of the vandalism that has taken place over the past year in Gauteng yesterday.
The vandalism of trains intensified during the lockdown when Prasa did not appoint security firms to guard its infrastructure after its contracts were deemed illegal. Prasa was forced to shut down several corridors due to vandalism, leaving millions of commuters having to find other modes of transport.
Matthews said an additional 3,100 security officials have been recruited to protect the infrastructure.
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