Minister Peters to visit new train plant sod-turning
The sod-turning of the new train manufacturing plant in Dunnottar will take place at Faranani Multipurpose Centre in Tsakane at 9am on Friday.
The National Minister of Transport, Dipuo Peters, will attend the exclusive event, where the public will be able to view Test Train 1 (TT1), Test Train 2 (TT2) and the Public Display Train Coach (PDTC) which recently arrived in South Africa.
The R1-billion passenger train manufacturing and maintenance plant at Dunnottar will enable new passenger trains to be manufactured and maintained locally.
Nana Zenani, Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) communications manager, says the plant will create job opportunities and support SMMEs who will be permanently based at the plant as suppliers for the main manufacturing of new trains.
The TT2 will be a six coach train similar to the TT1.
Zenani says both test trains will never be released as commercial trains, but will remain test trains while all the findings from the tests by Prasa will ensure that all final train manufacturing specifications comply to the changes recommended by the testing teams.
The first three coaches will be empty, with exposed electrical panels and no passenger comforts.
However, the remainder of the three coaches will be fitted with all the passenger comforts in a similar fashion to the expected final passenger train.
“The differences in the internal will mark the second phase of testing by the Prasa and Gibela teams which will include upgraded tests from the lessons learnt from TT1,” she says.
The PDTC has been specially built to allow the public to have first-hand experience of how the final train will look like.
However, it will remain a showcase train and will be moved around Prasa’s main train stations.
Dr Popo Molefi, chairman of the Prasa board, says they are quite satisfied with the consistent delivery against their set targets.
“We are especially pleased with the arrival of the Public Display Train Coach as it will allow ordinary members of the public and our passengers to experience the future of passenger rail trains and the successful investment by Prasa into our new rolling stock,” he says.
Once complete, the state-of-the-art plant will be compatible with other international train- manufacturing plants around the world.
The event will mark the start of construction for the building of the R1-billion factory capable of manufacturing new Prasa trains and key components, train maintenance and train testing of newly built trains.
