Dunnottar – Gibela is ready to hand over the newly built South African commuter train to its customer, Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) before the end of this year.
This was revealed during a media tour at the Gibela train manufacturing plant in Dunnottar on Monday.
During the tour of the grounds, the media professionals were walked through the eight stages of train production, starting from the cutting of the key components from the South African rolled stainless steel to the final stages of the train which is ready to transport passengers.
Gibela communications officer Pamella Radebe says the blue, white and silver train is currently undergoing the final testing stages on the 1.2km customised track.
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“Its lightweight, stainless steel structure means it consumes less energy than standard trains.
“It is capable of going up to 120km/h and is fitted with the latest safety features, including the anti-crash system,” she explains.
Radebe says the six cars will be able to accommodate 1 200 passengers and it is fitted with air conditioning, CCTV and monitoring system which helps ensure the train runs on time.
“The second state of the art X’trapolis Mega commuter train is also nearing completion, with a minimum of six trains scheduled to be delivered to Prasa by the end of the first quarter of 2019.
“The R1-billion plant is the only one in Africa which contains R350-million worth of specialised equipment.
“This includes seven axis-welding robots, first of their kind in the railway industry globally,” she says.
Gibela CEO Thiery Darthout says thousands of people, mostly South Africans, have been involved in the scores of activities related to the construction, sourcing, and skills development and manufacturing to get to this point.
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“The tempo has been set to increase dramatically in order for us to reach our production targets.
“The plant will turn out two railway cars a day, 1.5 trains a week, 62 trains a year and a total of 580 trains over the next 10 years.
“This amounts to the fastest train production in the world,” he explains.
Gibela was established as a consortium to replace South Africa’s outdated rolling stock and will deliver 600 state-of-the-art passenger trains into the South African railway network over the next 10 years.
Radebe says they are committed to creating 1 500 direct jobs and thousands of indirect jobs through the supply chain over 10 years.
“This includes engineers, artisans, technicians, train drivers and technologists who will all benefit from training and upskilling,” she adds.
