With only 514 days left to go before the 2010 Footbal World Cup, some doubts occur that Gautrain project might face a few hiccoughs.

“There are some issues on Gautrain”, said Brian Bruce, CEO of Murray and Roberts, South Africa’s leading construction and engineering group, to Moneyweb. “Gautrain project was never intended to be completed by 2010. We have had many discussions about that but, unfortunately, to commission a complex transport system, like a rapid rail link, has all types of implications. The main argument between the contractor and the client is that there is additional cost involved and whether or not that cost is worth it”, Bruce said.

The project leader Jack Van der Merwe added, that the project was originally announced in 2000 and the World Cup was awarded just in 2004.

“It compressed our negotiation period with the concessionaire to reach the settlement to open the airport link in time for the soccer”, Van der Merwe said.

According to him, the airport link should be similar to the Heathrow Express in London and will have prices to match – currently about R80 per ticket.

As to the actual construction, both Bruce and Van Der Merwe are confident that the infrastructure will be completed on time but, Bruce is cautious about the amount of other work that still needs to go into it. "We will have the infrastructure in place and the carriages on the rail but, for the commissioning process, there are all the systems – signaling, control mechanisms, which have to be installed, operated and tested and ultimately they have to be safety-case tested. This is a fully integrated electronic system and needs more time than is available for 2010," he told Moneyweb.

Van der Merwe confirmed that testing began six months ago with static tests on the rolling stock in Derby in England. "After that we will link the coaches together and do another static test. Then we will start doing dynamic testing. After all that we then bring the coaches to South Africa, do the same here, and just then we will start linking them to the signaling system. The communications system and our signaling system are set up in a warehouse in Midrand (Johannesburg), so we are testing it there. All this testing process takes up to two years. We have to do about 7 000 km with the train before it can be certified for carrying passengers”, Van der Merwe explained.

Sign in with a social network: