The Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA) is set to acquire four new Diesel Electric (DE) SDD20 locomotives from China Civil Engineering and Construction Company (CCECC).
Tazara said in a statement that it had sealed a contract with the CCECC for the manufacture and supply of four new mainline locomotives with accompanying consumables and spare parts valued at approximately US$ 12.45 million.
The locomotives are expected to be delivered by December 2014. According to the statement, the Acting Managing Director of Tazara, Ronald Phiri, and Mr Miao Zhong, the TAZARA- based Chinese Railway Experts Team Leader, signed the contract on behalf of Tazara and CCECC, respectively.
The contract stipulates that the CSR Qishuyan Locomotive Company Limited of China will manufacture the 3000-Horsepower Diesel Electric SDD20 locomotives. The four SDD20 Locomotives are the second batch of the type to be manufactured by CSR for TAZARA, the first batch of six having been introduced on the line this year (2013).
Mr Phiri is quoted as saying that having reviewed and agreed on the specifications of the locomotives with CCECC, he was extremely delighted to sign the contract, effectively giving the manufacturer a goahead signal to begin manufacturing the locomotives, which would be needed as soon as possible.
He said that the acquisition of the four additional locomotives was a key factor and an integral part of the recently approved Five-Year Strategic Plan which envisaged the enhancement of the Authority’s hauling capacity in an effort to escalate the volume of cargo and revenue in the second year of the strategic plan, in 2014.
“The sooner we get these locomotives and start delivering on our 2014/2015 targets, the better,” the Acting Managing Director said whilst emphasizing that the idea was to improve both the availability and reliability of the equipment.
TAZARA now has a fleet of about 16 mainline locomotives at its disposal, six of which are newly acquired Diesel Electric SDD20 Locomotives and the remaining 10 being the old Diesel Electric U30C Locomotives that are aged over 25 years and whose reliability has reduced drastically in recent years due to overuse and lack of proper maintenance.
Eng. Phiri observed that the first batch of the six SDD20 locomotives posed a few teething challenges when they were introduced onto the TAZARA line earlier this year, but had since been fine-tuned and were performing satisfactorily.
So far, the SDD20 has been commended as powerful and ideal for the TAZARA terrain after performing exceptionally well in the last three months.
“We are confident that having observed the first batch of the SDD20 locos under three months of trials followed by three months of actual utilization, the next batch of the SDD20 locos would come with even higher quality and level of reliability,” he said.
Mr Phiri said that all indications were that TAZARA was heading for better times, especially that the two shareholding governments had given a go-ahead for private sector partnerships, which were expected to fill the investment gaps in needy areas of operations.
“So far so good, in terms of capacity enhancement in the equipment arena. With the invitation of the private sector in our operations, we now expect other areas such as the railway infrastructure itself to be serviced and maintained to appreciable levels in order to increase our efficiency to the satisfaction of our customers,” he observed.
Source Tanzania Daily News
