TANZANIA STANDARD GAUGE RAILWAY TO COMMENCE IN JANUARY

The operations of the eagerly awaited Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) from Dar es Salaam to Morogoro stretch are expected to commence next January should it receive endorsement from the regulatory body, it has been stated.

Tanzania Railway Corporation (TRC) Director General Masanja Kadogosa said on Saturday that the 300-kilometer SGR had reached 97 percent as of June this year and the first trial run by the project engineers proved successful.

He said the operational trial run will start next month and the Land Transport Regulatory Authority (Latra) will oversee the safety and effectiveness of the railway line before issuing a clearance to start official operations.

Mr. Kadogosa said the operational trial run will take almost three months for test and commission and if endorsed by the regulator, then the Dar es Salaam to Morogoro SGR services will start next January.

He said the corporation has started training the train drivers locally before going abroad for further studies.

Mr. Kadogosa said so far the first trial runs to test if all the systems are working as subjected to the terms of operations for the safety and security of the public and infrastructures.

“It is a complex project, the regulator has to test the safety of the railway line, fiber, cartel system, and electricity transmission line connected to the national grid,” he said.

He allayed public fears about electricity reliability, saying the SGR system is connected to the national grid and has a power reserve that can sustain it to run for almost 48-minutes without the need to feed generation among other standby power generation lines up.

Mr. Kadogosa said the first trial runs show that the railway line’s expected time from Dar es Salaam to Morogoro might be reduced as the speed is 160 kilometers per hour.

The government has paid 120bn/- in compensation for the Dar es Salaam to Morogoro slot, of which 65 percent was paid to Dar es Salaam residents who have paved the way for the project.

The 7.2tri/- SGR project from Dar es Salaam to Morogoro which is being executed by Turkish company YapiMerkezCo will upon completion link Tanzania with Rwanda, Burundi, and DR Congo.

He said the government is expected to inject 16.6tri/- for the 1,219 kilometers in all the five phases of the SGR project from Dar es Salaam to Mwanza, saying it has paid a total of 6.4tri/- as of June 30, this year.

The TRC DG said with the SGR project, the government will cut operation costs by three percent by using electricity compared to the current use of diesel.

The five phases under the SGR projects will cover Dar es Salaam – Morogoro section covering 300km, the Morogoro- Makutupora section 422km, Makutupora -Tabora section taking up 294km.

The final sections are Tabora – Isaka at 130km and Isaka to Mwanza, another 249km, capped by the Tabora to Kigoma section stretched along 411kms.

He said the SGR project will involve aligning national development plans to help Tanzanians move out of poverty, including the widening of road networks countrywide as it facilitates the development of other sectors.

Moreover, he said the current meter gauge railway line infrastructure will be retained as an im- important line that connected other parts of the country, thus TRC is making several renovations to the infrastructure, locomotives, passenger coaches, and wagons.