Obsolete equipment haunts NRZ

 

ANESU MASAMVU

 

The National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) is sweating over obsolete equipment that has become archaic and would cost millions of dollars to refurbish, Parliament heard this week.

NRZ has been struggling over the years to come back to life but with little success that has seen the parastatal resorting to refurbishing old locomotives and wagons that have outlived their lifespan.

Most of the trains have been put off the rails and described as a danger to the commuting public.

Even efforts to breathe life into few ones to address the urban transport problems have hit a brick wall as the machines failed to function properly leaving thousands stranded at a time commuter omnibuses were banned.

Company General Manager, Respina Zinyanduko (pictured) told Parliament that they have a total of 68 mainline locomotives with only 14 of them fully functional despite having outlived their lifespan.

“The age profile of the mainline locomotives, we are looking at the youngest being 30-44 years old. The lifespan that is expected for a nine-line locomotive is 25 years,” she said.

“We can however, pump in life into these locomotives through refurbishment and this exercise depends on the spares and these are the major replacements cost between US$750k to $1.5mn and if we do that major refurbishment, we are looking at an additional lifespan of about 10 years,” she added.

“In terms of our wagons, we have 5811 and those that are in service are 3065. Those that need upgrade or replacement are 2761. In terms of their age profile, they are 40 -60 years old and the average lifespan of a wagon is 40 years so almost all have outlived their economic life,” she said.

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