S. African rail company dismisses reports of problematic Chinese locomotives

The South African state rail company Transnet dismissed negative media reports on Tuesday, saying they are satisfied with the progress and quality of locomotives from China.

Some media reports on Monday said the locomotives had technical problems thereby stalling the first trains' arrival in South Africa. They also said Transnet refused to receive another 18 locomotives from China.

In 2014, Transnet contracted four international original equipment manufacturers to supply 1,064 new locomotives. These included China North Rail (CNR), China South Rail (CSR), General Electric (GE) and Bombardier. CNR and CSR merged into CRRC Corporation Limited in 2015.

Molatwane Likhethe, general manager for corporate communications at Transnet, said that media reports that their acquisition program has failed is "baseless".

Transnet said that CRRC had delivered two prototype locomotives for testing in South African conditions and that "it is normal procedure to make a prototype and test it before handing it over to the buyer."

He said CRRC would manufacture the first 20 locomotives in their facility in China while the balance will be assembled at the Transnet Manufacturing facility in Durban.

Likhethe said his company made it a condition that the 18 locomotives in China be checked for the glitches before being shipped to South Africa.

In the past ten years, Transnet bought locomotives from various equipment manufacturers including EMD, General Electric and Mitsui. Transnet said in all these cases, similar tests were run before acceptance.

"We wish to put on record that such testing is standard. Each and every locomotive goes through the process. Discovery of technical glitches is no indication of poor workmanship, engineering or design," Likhethe said.

Likhethe said since the announcement of the four suppliers, testings have been performed, glitches identified and addressed.

Likhethe criticized some sub-contractors for "creating baseless and sensational stories through the media."

"It is both inaccurate and mischievous to deliberately misinterpret an internationally recognized quality assurance process to advance devious ideological schemes and at the same time casting aspersions on Transnet's image and integrity of our processes. Transnet runs many Chinese-made locomotives on its network and they run excellently," he added. Endit