The department of transport will prioritise the modernisation of its Braamfontein maintenance depot as it looks for private investors to plough billions of rand into passenger rail infrastructure, with the depot operating at just 32% of its capacity.
The Braamfontein depot comprises Metrorail and Shosholoza Meyl rolling stock maintenance depots located in Johannesburg, serving as critical facilities for the maintenance and staging of Prasa’s existing and new electric multiple unit (EMU) fleet.
The congestion has become so bad that maintenance activities that used to take 30 minutes now stretch to about three hours.
The depot has not been upgraded in 12 years. Delays there are slowing Prasa’s service recovery programme, with knock-on operational and financial effects that go well beyond issues at the depot itself, according to technical documents from the request for information issued by the department last month.
The state-owned Prasa has been on a road to recovery, and by end-May the entity had successfully commissioned 35 out of 40 passenger corridors and achieved an annual audited figure of 77-million passenger journeys.
The entity, one of the state-owned companies hollowed out by state capture, has also taken receipt of 228 trainsets from the Dunnottar factory at a current rate of six per month, which are distributed nationally.
However, the technical note says these progress marks add to the challenges facing its maintenance programme.
“Despite this seemingly excellent performance from a service recovery process and deliveries from Gibela, Prasa has reached an alarming point in terms of new train maintenance compliance and is also affected by a number of other areas,” it said.
Some of the other pain points include the delay in establishing the rolling stock depot maintenance and repair facilities and the recovery of the signalling systems as a requirement for the Rail Safety Regulator to lift the “current, limiting, operational restrictions”.
Prasa’s Wolmerton depot, which serves as the primary maintenance hub for Gauteng’s northern rail corridors, including the Mabopane, Pienaarspoort and Saulsville lines, is also facing acute capacity constraints, currently operating at only 41.6% of required maintenance capacity.
Prasa has identified depots that need to be modernised in the depot modernisation programme, including Salt River, Springfield and Durban.
“This programme is expected to run parallel with the phasing out of the existing rolling stock, and it is expected that a complete retirement of the current fleet will have been achieved by 2033. The level of investment will increase gradually as the new rolling stock is introduced into service,” the technical note reads.
Threat to revenue recovery programme
The capacity shortfall at the depots directly threatens Prasa’s R7bn revenue recovery programme and service reliability across SA’s largest urban rail network.
The note warns that if modernisation projects are not initiated expeditiously, the completion of signalling and other recovery-related projects will rapidly increase demand for EMU sets.
“A shortage in reliable train sets due to a lack of maintenance facilities will have a detrimental impact on reliability. The worst-case scenario will require Prasa to reintroduce yellow fleet train sets due to the unavailability of serviced EMU train sets.”
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