Metrorail Gauteng
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Metrorail Gauteng |
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Metrorail Gauteng is the S-Bahn in the Gauteng Province of South Africa , which opens up the areas around the major cities of Johannesburg and Pretoria . In 2016, the route network was 557 kilometers long and served 212 stations. The trains on the 16 lines were used by 1.16 million passengers on an average working day in 2009. The S-Bahn is operated by Metrorail , a subsidiary of PRASA , the state railway company that handles travel.
Route network
The lines begin at the three nodes Johannesburg Park Station , Germiston and Pretoria . They serve downtown Johannesburg, East Rand , Soweto , Vereeniging , West Rand, Pretoria and its surrounding suburbs to the north, west and east. The northern suburbs and western suburbs of Johannesburg and the south-eastern suburbs of Pretoria are not served by the S-Bahn. This includes the South African financial center Sandton , which is served by the Gautrain , and Randburg , which has a population of over 300,000 and has no rail connection.
Lines
Metrorail Gauteng operates the following lines:
- Johannesburg – Dunswart – Daveyton, which serves Germiston, Boksburg and Daveyton
- George Goch – Johannesburg – Naledi, which serves Soweto
- Germiston – Kliprivier – Vereeniging, which serves Katlehong , Meyerton and Vereeniging
- Germiston – Kwesine serving Katlehong
- Germiston – New Canada, which serves the area south of Johannesburg city center
- Hercules – Capital Park – Pienaarspoort, which serves Pretoria North and Mamelodi
- Johannesburg – Leralla / Pretoria serving Kempton Park , Tembisa , Centurion and Pretoria
- Johannesburg – Oberholzer, which serves Orlando in Soweto, Westonaria and Carletonville
- Johannesburg – Randfontein, which serves Roodepoort , Krugersdorp and Randfontein
- Johannesburg – Springs, which serves Boksburg, Benoni , Brakpan and Springs
- Johannesburg – New Canada – Vereeniging, which serves Johannesburg, Orlando in Soweto, Lenasia , Sebokeng and Vereeniging
- Springs – Nigel serving Nigel
- Pretoria / Belle Ombre – De Wildt / Mabopane, which serves Pretoria North, Ga-Rankuwa and Soshanguve
- Pretoria – Pienaarspoort, which serves Hatfield and Mamelodi
- Pretoria – Saulsville, which serves Pretoria West and Atteridgeville
- Johannesburg – Nasrec, which serves Nasrec , where the FNB Stadium is located , with four trains per day
history
After gold was discovered in Witwatersrand in 1886 , the region in what was then the Transvaal Republic developed very quickly from an agricultural area to an industrial location. The first local trains ran on the Braamfontein – Boksburg line, which was opened by the Nederlandsch-Zuid-Afrikaansche Spoorwegmaatschappij (NZASM) on March 17, 1890 for the transport of coal , which was called the Rand Tram . The route was extended from Boksburg to Springs in October 1890 and from Johannesburg via Roodepoort to Krugersdorp in February 1891. The route, originally laid out with a light superstructure , was provided with a normal superstructure from 1892 onwards. This was followed by the expansion to double and partially triple lanes, because the line was the busiest railway line in the Transvaal Republic in 1900, with the Johannesburg Park – Germiston section being the busiest. Compared to other routes of the NZASM, the Rand Tram was relatively short at 81 km in length, but had much smaller station distances than other routes.
After the British had conquered the Transvaal Republic in the Second Boer War , the NZASM and other railways in the conquered areas became part of the Imperial Military Railways (IMR), which in 1902 became part of the Central South African Railways (CSAR) of the British colonial empire . These were in turn incorporated into the South African Railways with the establishment of the South African Union in 1910 .
With the electrification of the suburban lines of Gauteng, which began in 1937, the suburban lines covered by steam locomotives were replaced by electric multiple units .
In preparation for the privatization of the railways, the SAR was incorporated into the South African Transport Service (SATS) under the Botha government in 1981 , from which the profit-generating parts were transferred to the public stock corporation Transnet . The less lucrative passenger train traffic was housed with the South African Rail Commuter Corporation (SARCC), which was directly subordinate to the National Department of Transport . SARCC took over all assets in the form of land and real estate along the S-Bahn lines that were owned by SATS. They should be sold on the market as profitably as possible, with the aim of using the proceeds to reduce the operating deficit. S-Bahn operations remained under the name Metrorail as a separate division at Spoornet , a subsidiary of Transnet that was responsible for railway operations.
In 1997, Metrorail was placed directly under Transnet, with Metrorail being divided into regions. In Gauteng, the two regions of Witwatersrand in the south and Tshwane in the north emerged. The Witwatersrand region comprised the greater Johannesburg area with the routes to Springs, Soweto and Randfontein via Krugersdorp; the Tshwane region included Pretoria and its suburbs. Both regions operated trains connecting the two regions.
In 2006, Metrorail came back directly to SARCC, with the two regions of Witwatersrand and Tshwane becoming the Gauteng region. In 2009 SARCC was transferred to the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA).
vehicles
The Metrorail Gauteng uses electric multiple units of the 5M2 and 10M series . The first 5M2 were built and imported by Metro Cammell in England in the late 1950s . Later series were built by Union Carriage & Wagon (UCW) in Nigel and named 5M2A. Since the end of the 2000s, 10M trains with modern heads have been built on chassis of 5M2, which have reached the end of their service life. The multiple units consist of 11 to 13 intermediate cars, which are driven by three motor cars - one at both ends and one in the middle of the train.
In the next few years, some of the 600 new multiple units ordered by the Gibela Rail Transportation consortium in October 2013 will be put into operation at Metrorail Gauteng. The consortium consists of Alstom and the local Actom, which emerged from the South African subsidiary GEC . It plans to manufacture the trains in a newly built factory in Dunnottar , 50 km east of Johannesburg. The trains are a cape gauge version of the X'Trapolis family from Alstom, which is referred to as X'Trapolis Mega , where Mega stands for meter gauge . The first twenty trains will be built in Brazil , the rest will be built locally in South Africa. Some of the first two test trains, consisting of six cars, have not yet been fitted out. They were delivered in December 2015 and early 2016. The first trains are to go into operation on the Mabopane – Pretoria and Naledi – Johannesburg connections.
business
The Gauteng Metrorail transports around 10% of commuters in the region. The highest traffic volume is on the core route between New Canada and Germiston, where 35% of the traffic is in the Johannesburg area. The stations with the highest number of passengers are Johannesburg Park and Germiston.
The trains are often so overcrowded that passengers are standing on the front of the vehicles and sometimes also ride on the roofs, which is very common on the connection from Pretoria to Johannesburg. Other security problems include open doors, people on the tracks and crime on the trains and at the stations. Most of the passengers come from the young, male, working black population, whites are advised against using the Metrorail for safety reasons.
Infrastructure and vehicles are outdated - most railcars are around 40 years old, which leads to a lot of malfunctions and failures. These in turn lead to attacks on drivers and vandalism on trains, which are sometimes set on fire by angry commuters. As a result, operations on the affected routes are often stopped for days until the situation has calmed down again. Trainsurfing is common.
Two car classes are available for passengers : Metro and Metroplus. In the Metroplus class there are gray-padded plastic seats, in the Metro class there are hard longitudinal benches made of plastic. In 2010 the monthly ticket on the Johannesburg – Naledi route cost 79 Rand in the Metro class and 180 Rand in the Metroplus class. The single trip cost 4 rand in the metro class. The tickets are checked by means of access barriers with turnstiles at the stations.
The trains do not have route boards. Passengers must use the timetable and the number of the train displayed on the front of the train to find their destination.
Accidents
- July 14, 2005: rear-end collision in Merafe, 162 injured
- May 20, 2011: rear-end collision in Soweto, 835 injured
- April 8, 2011: Collision on the Mabopane – Pretoria route, around 200 injured, 1 dead
- January 31, 2013: Rear-end collision near Saulsville, injuring approximately 200 people
- January 3, 2014: Derailment of a train on the Pretoria – Johannesburg line, 15 injured
- April 28, 2015: Rear-end collision in Denver, 92 injured, 1 dead
- June 15, 2015: Derailment near Doornfontein , 6 injured
- July 17, 2015: Rear-end collision at Booysens, 239 injured, the cause was a fault in the signal system
- October 23, 2015: Panic breaks out due to a technical defect, passengers jump from the moving train, around 80 injured
Web links
- Metrorail. Retrieved on February 25, 2016 (English, official website of the operator).
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Open Street Map. Retrieved February 25, 2016 .
- ↑ Robert Schwandl: Johannesburg. In: Urban Rail. Retrieved February 25, 2016 .
- ↑ a b c d estimated according to Transport System Analysis. (No longer available online.) In: Johannesburg Inner City Traffic & Transportation Study. March 2010, archived from the original on May 10, 2017 ; accessed on February 25, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Census 2011, p. 18 (PDF file; 2.8 MB), accessed on May 6, 2013
- ↑ Timetables . Metrorail. Retrieved February 25, 2016.
- ↑ NZASM Structures of the Rand Tram. In: The Heritage Portal. Retrieved February 26, 2016 .
- ^ The largest project in Alstom's history, for suburban trains in South Africa, comes into force. Alstom, accessed February 27, 2016 .
- ^ Moss: A new paradigm for South African commuter rail transport. Gibela Rail Transport Consortium, accessed February 27, 2016 .
- ^ Metrorail on hi-tech track. In: IOL. Retrieved February 27, 2016 .
- ↑ Annual Transport Statistics 2002. In: Interim National Passenger Rail Plan. Department of Transport, South Africa, June 2005, p. 22 , accessed on February 27, 2016 .
- ↑ Andre Kritzinger: SAR Class 5M Motor Coach (Type 3 R). In: Railroad Picture Archives. August 21, 2007, archived from the original on February 22, 2012 ; accessed on February 27, 2016 (English).
- ↑ Metro Rail Safety Awareness Campain. Metrorail, accessed February 27, 2016 .
- ^ Train travel in South Africa. In: Seat 61. Retrieved February 27, 2016 .
- ↑ enca: Metrorail trains torched in Pretoria. In: www.enca.com. Retrieved February 27, 2016 .
- ^ Dicing with death on SA trains . In: BBC . June 27, 2006 ( bbc.co.uk [accessed February 27, 2016]).
- ^ City of Johannesburg - Trains. (No longer available online.) In: www.joburg.org.za. Archived from the original on February 27, 2016 ; accessed on February 27, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Many hurt in S Africa rail crash . In: BBC . July 14, 2005 ( bbc.co.uk [accessed February 27, 2016]).
- ^ Soweto, South Africa, train crash injured hundreds. In: BBC News. Retrieved February 27, 2016 (UK English).
- ^ Metrorail to probe crash. In: IOL. Retrieved February 27, 2016 .
- ^ Metrorail defends train crash driver. In: IOL. Retrieved February 27, 2016 .
- ↑ 15 injured in Joburg train accident. (No longer available online.) SABC January 3, 2014, archived from the original on February 27, 2016 ; accessed on February 27, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Ruth Halkon: Terrible news coming from South Africa - our thoughts go out to those injured. In: mirror. Retrieved February 27, 2016 .
- ↑ Defective signaling likely caused Joburg train crash. In: News24. Retrieved February 27, 2016 .
- ↑ Update: At least 80 injured in Ennerdale train incident. In: eNCA. Retrieved February 27, 2016 .
