WATCH: Prasa winning war to revive rail transport – Mbalula

Prasa, the passenger rail agency of South Africa was working on efforts to address historic challenges and revive the train service to commuters.

Transport minister Fikile Mbalula last week Friday, inspected Prasa’s new “blue trains” during a ride on one of the locally-produced ones, from Piennarspoort to Pretoria station.

🚨 MADE IN SOUTH AFRICA 🚨

This state of the art train is being pulled by @follow_transnet Locomotive. This is produced locally, by South Africans & for the citizens of our country. Nize nisiphathe njengezikhali zaMantungwa #FixingTransport @MbalulaFikile @EsethuOnDuty pic.twitter.com/BQPYugdcjm

— PRASA Group (@PRASA_Group) November 12, 2019

READ MORE: Judge to still oversee compliance of Prasa safety

He was also there to appraise himself of the work of the Prasa war room and “assess the challenges that remain”.

Mbalula launched the war room in August, as part of his intervention to fix rail transportation in the country.

Giving details of how the war room would operate, he said it would be supported by a technical team of experts with in-depth knowledge and experience in areas such as train operations, signalling, rolling stock and security.

He said in April 2014, Prasa undertook to purchase new trains from the Gibela rail transport consortium, through a manufacture and supply agreement.

He said Gibela would provide 600 new trains, of which 580 were locally manufactured.

“Our trains are still full during peak hours. This we are working hard to change – with upgrades and the new trains, we promise our people they will see this change,” said Mbalula.

“We will fix things,” he said.

Mbalula said the factory had been ramping up local manufacturing with seven local trains already delivered to Prasa.

“To date, the factory employs more than 900 South Africans, and more than 4 000 individuals have been trained for local manufacture.”

He said there were many challenges faced at Prasa including security “which is not up to standard”.

“It is not close to where I want – and I’ve mandated Prasa to do a security overhaul.”

Prasa spokesperson Nana Zenani said the organisation was also addressing safety.

Zenani said Prasa had many challenges and was fighting congestion on trains.

She said, “vandalism and theft of cables and railway tracks is the biggest contributor to train delays”.

READ MORE: Prasa dismisses 14 for attempted robbery

“Vandalism of electrical lines means trains cannot run or, if they do run, they have to be manually authorised because the rail signalling has been compromised and train movement has to be significantly slowed down.”

Zenani said the age of the rolling stock was also a factor as most of Prasa’s current trains were over 40-years-old.

“Prasa broke off from Transnet and inherited a historically dysfunctional system that, over the years, continued to deteriorate. The average age of the yellow and grey trains is 40 years, whereas a train’s average [useful] age is 15 years.

“This is why Prasa has already started manufacturing new trains locally in Nigel. The new trains are already running between Piennarsport and Pretoria, where the minister visited.

“Due to the age and condition of the rail tracks, some areas demand that trains run at a very slow rate called a speed restriction.”

READ MORE: Long-awaited e-tolls decision this week

She said Prasa’s modernisation programme was currently replacing old stock with the new “blue trains” which operate between Piennarspoort and Pretoria station.

“The modernisation programme is also dealing with infrastructure upgrades including stations, conditions of the rail tracks and security strategy to discourage vandalism. All these are measures to address train delays and congestion.”

Zenani said Prasa was also improving security at train stations to end corruption.

READ MORE: Officials inspect Pretoria public transport accessibility

“Prasa has cancelled the current security contracts and is in the process of going to the market with a new security tender that will improve the current security deployment strategy and focus on the customer, employee and infrastructure security using both manpower and technology intervention.”

She said Prasa had deployed its own security teams and was working with the railway police along with other security teams.

Zenani said Prasa’s new trains offered faster travel times, reliable service, improved security with CCTV cameras and were fully air-conditioned.

Prasa said it was important to note that it was established 10 years ago, with a mandate to update the current passenger rail service.

Do you have more information about the story? Please send us an email to editorial@rekord.co.za or phone us on 083 625 4114.

For free breaking and community news, visit Rekord’s websites:

Rekord East
Rekord North
Rekord Centurion
Rekord Moot

For more news and interesting articles, like Rekord on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or Instagram