På et kontinent, hvor jernbanerne mest er i elendig forfatning og de fleste af dem stammer tilbage fra kolonitiden, er det et stort skridt
Africa’s fastest train has opened its new route to Pretoria from Johannesburg in a bid to speed up travel between two of South Africas major cities, reports BBC online Tuesday
The Gautrain takes less than 30 minutes for the 54 km journey between the capital and “Africas New York”, while it can take up to two hours to travel this distance by car during rush hour.
The Gautrain’s inaugural airport route was opened just in time for the 2010 World Cup, when it was used by thousands of football fans. But by reaching Pretoria, it is likely to be used by ordinary South African commuters to beat the traffic on one of South Africa’s busiest roads.
The government says it aims to make rail transport the backbone of the public transport system.
The train’s top speed is 160 km/h – a long way from the world’s fastest trains but still far superior to the locomotives chugging along most of the rest of the continent’s tracks, which mostly date from the colonial era.
The Gautrain cost 25 billion Rand (3,8 billion US dollar) to build, more than three times the initial 2005 estimate of 7 billion Rand.
Critics have argued that it will only benefit the elite. They say the money spent should have been used instead to improve the existing transport system, which includes the old Metrorail network, which transports two million people daily, instead of beginning a new one.
The Metrorail trains are mainly used as a link between townships including Soweto and Johannesburg, notes BBC.
