TANZANIA: The first of four former Austrian Federal Railways Class 1014 electric locomotives purchased by Turkish construction company Yapı Merkezi has been shipped to Tanzania for use in testing the Dar es Salaam – Morogoro standard gauge line now nearing completion.
Locomotive 1014 014 was delivered with European screw couplers, but the rest will be retrofitted with AAR pattern knuckle couplers before delivery.
The 18 dual-system 15 kV 16·7 Hz and 25 kV 50 Hz locomotives with a maximum speed of 175 km/h were manufactured for ÖBB by SGP Graz and ELIN in 1993-94. The 3 MW locos were withdrawn in 2009, and eventually sold to Romania in 2016. They were bought in 2018 by Zeller Transport Technik, which transported some of them back to Austria. Following the bankruptcy of ZTT, four were sold to Yapı Merkezi.
Revenue services on the standard gauge line are due to be worked by a fleet of 17 electric locomotives which Tanzania Railway Corp ordered from Hyundai Rotem in July 2021. These are to be assembled at Changwon in South Korea, with Škoda supplying the electrical equipment.
