SOUTH AFRICA: Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa has restarted services on the Pretoria – Kempton Park suburban rail line in Gauteng province, and reintroduced a limited service on the Gqeberha – Uitenhage line in Eastern Cape province.
Local rail services across the country had been disrupted by a spate of vandalism and cable theft which occurred during and after the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown in 2020, when Prasa was forced to suspend operation on multiple routes.
Gauteng resumption
The Pretoria – Kempton Park service restarted on September 28, worked by new X’Trapolis electric multiple-units supplied by the Alstom-led Gibela consortium.
‘The resumption of this service takes us a step closer towards running the service between the three big metropolitan municipalities in Gauteng’, explained Prasa Group CEO Hishaam Emeran. ‘Soon trains will be running from Pretoria to Ekurhuleni, and all the way to Johannesburg Park Station, reflecting the interconnectedness between our metropolitan municipalities.’
Prasa had previously restored services on other sections of the Johannesburg – Pretoria corridor: between Pretoria and Centurion in late March, and from Germiston to Leralla on June 27.
The latest reopenings mean that 20 suburban rail routes have been reinstated out of the 40 it operates across Gauteng, Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces. Prasa said it hoped to reinstate 80% of these passenger corridors by the end of the year.
Limited service returns in Eastern Cape
On October 16 Prasa reintroduced a limited suburban service on the line linking Uitenhage with Gqeberha (formerly Port Elizabeth). The once-daily train leaves Uitenhage at 06.15 and returns from Gqeberha at 17.15.
‘The resumption of service is a welcome relief to commuters seeking an affordable mode of transport’, Emeran said. ‘Our teams are on the ground to ensure that the service is as smooth as possible. The Gqeberha-Uitenhage area is one of our most important regions.’
A limited service has been operating on Prasa’s other commuter line in Eastern Cape province since April 25, linking East London and Berlin.
- Subscribers can read more about Prasa’s work to restore the suburban rail corridors in major South African cities in the July 2023 issue of Railway Gazette International.
