Pretoria - The Passenger Railway Agency of South Africa (Prasa) is implementing a retirement strategy to scrap and sell almost 400 coaches of the Shosholoza Meyl fleet, which are rusting in various stations like Bosman station in Pretoria.
Spokesperson Andiswa Makanda said 655 coaches across the country were put on condition assessment, which recommended that 395 be scrapped and sold for being beyond repair, while 295 coaches will undergo general overhaul over the next five years.
Shosholoza Meyl, operated by Mainline Passenger Service, a division of Prasa which operates long-distance coaches, will only refurbish 22 coaches this current financial year.
A total of 155 of these coaches were currently in Salvokop, Pretoria, while others are in other stations like Cape Town and Johannesburg.
“Mainline Passenger Services has already recovered some long-distance services like the Amatole route and the Johannesburg to Musina route,” Makanda added.
Shosholoza Meyl was affected by the theft and vandalism of railway infrastructure that escalated in 2020 during the onset of Covid-19 stage 5 lockdown.
It operates more than 90% of its services on the Transnet Freight Rail railway infrastructure, which is vast and spread across all nine provinces.
“The plan is to progressively resume the service, based on the assessment of the condition of the infrastructure as it improves. The railway infrastructure rebuilding process is currently under way from both Prasa and Transnet Freight Rail.”
Prasa has also been putting back on service major corridors across the country, including Tshwane's Pretoria-Pienaarspoort and Pretoria-Mabopane corridors, as it works to restore the normal rail service that existed before vandalism.
Pretoria News