Saturday, April 12, 2025

Brilliant! SA Dropped R600m On Trains That Don’t Fit Our Tracks

Here's one to make you feel a little better about some of your more cringeworthy moments this weekend - compared to this blunder you're still smelling like roses.

Remember how foolish you felt when you bought the car charger accessory that doesn’t actually fit your phone? What about that time you thought you’d save some cash and bought a monster pack of screw-in lightbulbs, only to get home and see yours happen to be Bayonets?

The point is we’ve all had our fair share of brain farts but, more than likely, yours didn’t cost in excess of half a billion rand. Government’s recent locomotive purchase hasn’t gone down very well in parliament as TimesLive reports:

The Passenger Rail Agency of SA recently imported 13 new diesel locos at a cost of R600-million as part of an order for 70 locos for R3.5-billion from Spanish manufacturer Vossloh Espaa.

DA spokesman on transport Manny de Freitas said the locos have a roof height of 4.264m but the maximum height for diesel locos in this country can not exceed 3.965m.

“Engineers say the locomotives could damage the overhead electrical cables on the railway lines,” he said.

He said parliament had been misled about the dimensions of the new locos.

The EFF also got a few jibes in, calling for Prasa CEO Lucky Montana to be suspended without pay during an investigation into the tender takes place.

Any chance we still have the receipt and can ask for a refund or store credit?

[source:timeslive]