Tanzania’s electric trains to arrive in November in first for East Africa

Tanzania is set to become the first East African country to operate electric trains.

CAPE TOWN, July 22 (ANA) – Tanzania will become the first East African country to operate electric trains.

Forty-two electric trains are expected to arrive in Tanzania by November 2021 from Germany and South Korea, Kenyan digital news platform Tuko reported recently.

Once the electric trains have arrived, a section of the country’s Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), which is now more than 90% complete, will be tested.

The section of SGR to be tested is the 184km stretch from Dar es Salaam to Morogoro, according to Tanzania’s Minister of Works and Transport, Dr Leonard Chamuriho.

Chamuriho was in attendance at the signing of the contract between Tanzania Railway Corporation (TRC) and Hyundai Rotem on Wednesday, July 14, according to local news platform The Citizen.

TRC director general Masanja Kadogosa emphasised that Tanzanians will be jetting off to Korea in order to learn how to operate the electric trains, including 200 engineers and 10 drivers.

“In every contract that we have signed so far, there is a component that compels the teaching of local experts on maintenance, signals and driving,” he said.

The new electric trains have the potential to travel at four times the speed of Tanzania’s older trains, at a maximum of 160km/h.

Tanzania will join the likes of South Africa, Egypt and Ethiopia in introducing electric trains.

Egypt was the first country in Africa to have an electric train, which was launched in the late 1980s, according to Africa Check.

Launched in 2016, Ethiopia–Djibouti’s electric train was Africa’s first cross-border railway of its kind, the BBC reported at the time.

– African News Agency (ANA); Editing by Yaron Blecher