You may be under the impression that the Gautrain will be an engineering marvel, a sleek annunciation from the bleeding edge of passenger transport technology arriving on the traffic-choked Highveld. And you could be forgiven for that: not only is the Gautrain going to cost almost as much as refurbishing the entire national rail network, but it has consistently been sold on its speed and sophistication.
Nevertheless, you would be wrong.
I have ridden the Gautrain, and I can report that it is a pleasant, but thoroughly unremarkable commuter train.
You too can ride it — or at least a reasonable facsimile — next time you are in Britain. The train itself is the Bombardier Electrostar, and the private operator c2c runs a fleet of them through the east-end of London to the coast. It is a surprisingly quiet ride, and comfortable; certainly far more pleasant than anything Metrorail can offer at present.
The seating is supportive, but not plush, large windows let in the view, and cunning electronic management systems handle safety and passenger security, while helping to boost operating efficiency. The whole thing is directed by a digital signalling system that is, by all accounts, a significant advance on the creaking block signal network that appears to have directed the Shosholoza Meyl (the old Trans Karoo express) to crash into the Blue Train last week.
But this is not Shanghai’s R10-billion Maglev, which floats above its rails on a magnetic cushion and is good for 400kph — almost as fast as it loses money. Nor is it a 300kph intercity express such as France’s TGV or Germany’s ICE. It can get up to 165kph, which is plenty for the purpose of shuttling commuters around central Gauteng, where existing trains travel at about half that speed.
To be sure, Bombadier are tarting the Electrostar up a little at the request of Jack van der Merwe, the Gautrain project leader, giving it a more aerodynamic profile that engineers at the company’s Derby plant refer to with a wince as ”the sexy nose”. But that is a cosmetic move intended to make the train a moving advertisement for itself. When it starts service (in 2010 if all concerned are as good as they say they are, and lucky to boot) the Gautrain will be based on relatively modest technology, which will by then have been in operation for 10 years.
The rolling stock will arrive at the Union Carriageway yard either in completely knocked down form, like a giant box of IKEA furniture, or as partially assembled shells. Completion locally will be done by relatively unskilled labourers wielding wrenches and glue guns.
So the project will be expensive not because of technological hubris, but because it requires civil engineering and construction, on an immense scale: 80km of track, 15km of tunnelling, and 10 stations.
Everyone I spoke to at Bouygues, the French construction firm that will be doing much of the work, described it as a ”huge” project, and then insisted with a Gallic shrug that they could get it done on time.
We shall see.
Nic Dawes travelled to the United Kingdom and France as a guest of Gautrain Rapid Rail Link