Tz receives 264 Chinese-made cargo wagons for electric trains

Tanzania’s $10bn SGR is an electrified medium-speed line that will eventually connect the commercial capital of Dar es Salaam with the densely populated Great Lake states of Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda

DAR ES SALAAM | Xinhua and Agencies |  The Tanzania Railways Corporation (TRC) said Wednesday that it had received 264 cargo wagons made by China’s CRRC Qiqihar Rolling Stock Co., Ltd for the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) electric trains.

According to a statement by TRC, the 264 cargo wagons, as part of 1,430 wagons manufactured by the CRRC for the TRC, arrived in the port of Dar es Salaam Tuesday.

TRC said 200 of the delivered wagons will be for ferrying containers, with 64 for loose cargo. After offloading the cargo wagons, the corporation will undergo trial runs, first without cargo and later on with cargo, between Dar es Salaam, Morogoro and Dodoma, the capital of Tanzania.

Commercial operations for the cargo wagons will start after TRC and experts from the contractors have certified the wagons for use, it added, without detailing when the trial runs will begin.

On Aug. 1, Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan officially launched passenger commercial operations of the country’s SGR electric train service from Dar es Salaam to Dodoma via Morogoro.

TRC Director General Masanja Kadogosa said the entire SGR project will cover 1,596 km from Dar es Salaam to the Mwanza region, and upon completion, the modern rail link will cut travel time significantly and boost economic development in Tanzania and across the region.

Tanzania’s $10bn SGR is an electrified medium-speed line that will eventually connect the commercial capital of Dar es Salaam with the densely populated Great Lake states of Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda.

A 726km section of the line, running from Dar to the administrative capital of Dodoma, was built by a joint venture between Yapi Merkezi of Turkey and Mota-Engil of Portugal. Construction broke ground in April 2017, and passenger services began in June.

The line has cut the time taken to travel between Dar and Dodoma from 10 hours to 3.5. According to Kitila Mkumbo, a minister of state, the passenger element of the SGR has transported 645,421 passengers between June and September.

As well as the SGR wagons, TRC has bought 400 more for carrying general cargo such as sugar, cement, salt, cotton, tobacco and coffee, and 600 for shipping containers.

There are also other wagons for petroleum tanks, pipes, wood, metal and cattle.

TRC is working on modernising more than 2,500km of its network. ■