Back on track: too-tall locomotives to leave SA for new home
Six of the “too-tall” Spanish locomotives bought by SA’s Passenger Rail Agency in a controversial locomotive deal in 2015, will soon be on their way to a new life in Tanzania.
The hi-tech AFRO 4000 locomotives, which have been standing out of use in Braamfontein since November 2015, were sold on auction in 2019 to Traxtion, a private Pretoriabased locomotive-hire company, for R65m.
While the locomotives were due to move to Traxtion’s maintenance facility in Rosslyn in March, the countrywide lockdown followed by massive vandalism on the railway line to Pretoria, halted all rail traffic on the line.
“We’re very relieved,” said Traxtion chief executive James Holley, who had endured a few anxious months while waiting for permission to move the locos to their temporary home.
“We are going to service and paint them and then send them up to one of our Africa operations.”
Traxtion hires locomotives and crews to mines, industries and Southern African railways which are short of engines.
While Holley did not say where the ex-Prasa engines are going, it is widely understood in railway circles that they are to be leased to the Tazara Railway which runs between New Kapiri Mposhi, near Lusaka, Zambia, and Dar es Salaam.
The 1,860km Tazara or “Uhuru” (Freedom) Railway has struggled in recent years to operate efficiently due to its fleet of old and unreliable locomotives.
Traxtion locomotives have been on hire to the Taraza Railway since 2019.
The six AFRO 4000 locomotives have seen almost no use since arriving in SA in mid2015.
The engines were part of a R2.5bn deal, under which littleknown company Swifambo Rail contracted with Spanish locomotive manufacturer Vossloh in 2013 for 20 AFRO 4000 diesel-electric and 50 AFRODual electro-diesel locomotives.
But even as the first batch of locomotives were at sea, tests carried out by Transnet Freight Rail indicated that the locomotives would be too high to operate on certain electrified parts of the national railway network as they would foul the overhead power cables.
Just 13 engines had been delivered when they were sidelined pending modifications.
Meanwhile, Prasa’s board went to court to challenge the procurement process for the deal on the grounds that the tender process had been corrupt.
The high court set aside the contract in 2017.
The remaining seven locomotives were withdrawn from auction in 2020 while Prasa lobbied the department of transport for permission to use them on its Shosholoza Meyl long-distance trains.
Prasa also hoped to acquire a further 18 locomotives that were built under the terms of the original deal but never delivered.
The locomotives are still at the factory in Spain.
They are to be leased to the Tazara Railway which runs between New Kapiri Mposhi, near Lusaka, Zambia, and Dar es Salaam