SOUTH AFRICA | Railways

[The E.N.D]

Pics of Park Station which will serve the Johannesburg CBD.
The rest of the line opens in July.

image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr

[Mo Rush]

Originally Posted by The E.N.D

Pics of Park Station which will serve the Johannesburg CBD.
The rest of the line opens in July.

image hosted on flickr

Would it be possible to PM or mail me high res images of Park Station please?

[NicSA]

The world’s largest rail contract is up for grabs as SA revamps its commuter rail services. Razina Munshi assesses its promise to revitalise the industry while adopting a new model for black empowerment.

Before the end of the year, one of seven international bidders will be awarded the most lucrative rail contract currently available in the world.

It will be the Passenger Rail Agency of SA's (Prasa) first major tender, for the manufacture of new commuter coaches.

With an initial tranche of R40bn over 10 years, the new fleet is the biggest single item of government infrastructure spending since SA's preparation for the soccer World Cup.

It is the first part of a spending programme valued at R123bn over 20 years, for the replacement of Prasa's rolling stock.

This makes it more than double the value of the 1999 arms deal and as likely to generate debate and acrimony, given Prasa's pledge to revive the commuter rail industry and to raise the bar on the way the black empowerment component is implemented.

SA's commuter railways are in a state of disrepair. Three decades of little or no investment is bringing the system to a grinding halt. The frequency of collisions is rising and the number of commuters who have been injured has soared over the past two years.

Prasa CEO Lucky Montana says SA's commuter rail requirements are so critical that without an efficient and functioning system, efforts to grow and sustain cities and the economy will not work.

Prasa board chairman Sfiso Buthelezi is even more frank: "If we don't do something now, the system will collapse. This is the consequence of decades of no investment in rail."

The last time Prasa bought a train was in 1986, from the Japanese.

The average age of Metrorail's fleet is 40 years. Metrorail is Prasa's commuter rail service in urban areas. Shosholoza Meyl, its regional and long-distance network, is only slightly better off, with an average coach age of 30.

The first 10-year tender will produce 3600 coaches out of a total of 7224 over 20 years. It will deliver modern commuter coaches to replace Metrorail's old, outdated and unsafe carriages.

A decision to procure a new fleet from manufacturers abroad would have been an easy option. But Prasa won't just buy trains, says Montana.

"If we are buying a train, we also want to buy local jobs, local skills and buy into a rail industry for SA. We must create the black industrialists of the future."

The size of the programme - all with guaranteed funding from national treasury - justifies the creation of an industry.

SA once had a thriving rail engineering sector but decades of under investment and neglect caused local capability, technology and skills to fall away .

To revitalise it, as Prasa hopes, will require the transfer of technology, meaningful skills development and the creation of 66000 new direct and indirect jobs. It also presents an opportunity for black economic empowerment (BEE) players to get a foothold in the sector, which will help achieve Prasa's goal of creating black industrialists.

It is rare that an entire fleet is procured all at once - usually coaches are acquired as and when old ones need replacing.

Unfortunately, government waited until it was almost too late to act. One-third of Prasa's coaches need to be retired within the next three years.

However, the magnitude of the expenditure and the fact that it will come from government's coffers is expected to forge a new industry.



Seven international companies and consortia have submitted bids, after a request for proposals which closed in September. Prasa says it will announce its preferred bidder in the first week of December.

Those in the running are Spanish firm CAF, Canadian Bombardier, China South Rail, China North Rail, Gibela Rail Transportation (comprising French manufacturer Alstom and SA company Actom), Dudula Rail (made up of Swiss company Stadler, ABB SA and Naledi Rail Engineering), and a seventh consortium of China South Rail and Wictra.

The tender comes at a time when rail manufacturers are scrambling to expand into new markets. The rail market in Europe is saturated, and demand during an economic crisis is low.

Even with fairly stringent requirements, this makes Prasa's tender an attractive prospect. Several bidders have praised the process so far.

The tender requirements include:

The construction of a local manufacturing facility by 2016;

65% local content (goods and services sourced in SA) by mid-2016;

Mandatory skills development of local artisans, technicians, engineers and technologists;

The transfer of rail intellectual property;

Sustainable job creation; and

The creation of a local supply chain.

Furthermore, the winning bidder will have to partner with an empowerment consortium which Prasa will select through a separate bidding process. It has set a minimum requirement of 30% for broad-based BEE in the project.

http://www.fm.co.za/economy/2012/11/...-rail-industry

[NicSA]

THE Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa), the operator of commuter rail service Metrorail, has selected Gibela Rail Transportation (a consortium made up of Alstom and local company Actom) as its preferred supplier of rolling stock for its fleet renewal programme.

French power and transport group Alstom has been operating in South Africa mainly in the power sector as a supplier of technology for Eskom’s two new coal-fired power stations, while Actom is an electrical engineering firm.

"I am satisfied that the process was comprehensive, rigorous and exhaustive, and most importantly fair," Minister of Transport Ben Martins said in Johannesburg.

The programme will see the replacement of Prasa’s existing fleet over the next 20 years through the purchase of as many as 7,224 new coaches.

Prasa’s procurement programme is intended to support the development of local expertise in train building and component manufacturing.

Yvan Eriau, MD of Alstom South Africa, said it was a big day for South Africa and for Alstom.

"We are all very proud to be the preferred bidder, we will do all we can to show it was the best choice," Mr Eriau said.

Gibela Rail Transportation will need to invest heavily in local engineering capacity to meet the local content requirements.

This investment will not be restricted to cash, but will be linked to an equal investment in the intellectual property of each of its suppliers, enabling the local industry to meet the technical specifications for modern rail manufacturing. This could require the training and retooling of a wide range of manufacturing businesses.

Passenger coaches, unlike locomotives, have a far more diverse supplier base, with as many as 600 different components required for the final assembly of a coach.

Everything from window frames, glass, doors, seats, seat covers and cabling, to bogeys, traction and braking systems are needed. It provides an opportunity to revitalise the rail engineering sector and related sectors, which has the potential to act as a catalyst for growth and job creation.

Prasa must retire a third of its fleet within three years as the coaches have reached the end of their economic lives. The average age of the commuter fleet is 42 years. Rolling stock is expensive and the investment required is enormous. Decades of little to no investment in commuter rail services have led to an unreliable service which is used daily by 2.3-million commuters.

The Treasury has set aside R40bn for the first 10-year phase of the 20-year programme, which is less than half of the money that will be required to meet the extended demand for commuter services by 2035.

Prasa has been clear that the process cannot be delayed, as the demand for public transport in a rapidly urbanising country continues to grow.

[MelbourneCity]

Any pictures available yet of what the new carriages will look like? Any pics of what they are replacing?

[Lydon]

They're replacing these:



With these:

[MelbourneCity]

Nice looking trains. How safe would it be for an overseas tourist to ride the trains in Cape Town or Durban? Does a tourist even have need to? Are any attractions on train lines?

[Swede]

That new colorscheme reminds me a lot of the one used on Stockholm's subway and LRTs.
Wiki-link to to show what I mean.