Saulsville commuters to be serviced by ‘new blue electrical trains’
This comes as Prasa is ramping up efforts to bring more rail corridors back to operations across the country.
The Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) has been granted commercial licenses to run the People’s Train (their new blue electrical trains) on the Saulsville line in the Tshwane metro.
The announcement is good news for Cape Town commuters who use the Southern Line rail service to travel.
Prasa spokesperson Andiswa Makanda said the decision by the Railway Safety Regulator (RSR) comes as Prasa was ramping up efforts to bring more rail corridors back to operations across the country.
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“What the regulator’s decision means is that the new trains can now run on both peak and off-peak hours.”
The Metrorail Western Cape had been running the off-peak operations of the new electric trains on the Southern Line since November, last year while running the yellow grey trains during peak time.
“The People’s Train is part of Prasa’s modernisation programme that will bring state-of-the-art rail service to South Africans. It is part of our brand promise to deliver modern, faster, reliable, and cost-efficient train services.”
Makanda said the commercial licenses were key milestones in Prasa’s work to recover the corridors that were left decimated across the country due to theft, vandalism and Covid-19.
She said Prasa was committed to the safety of employees, passengers, communities.
“Prasa also endeavours to protect its assets.”
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The railway agency has been suffering severe loss of critical infrastructure such as cables, signals and overhead lines.
It said a programme to upgrade the infrastructure and implement necessary refurbishments was introduced in February 2020 following the President’s announcement of a R1.4-billion allocation for this purpose.
This after he had a first-hand experience of challenges on the Mabopane line in Pretoria.
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