Thirteen of Stadler Rail’s Afro 4000 locomotives, built in Valencia for Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa), are now on auction. The operator wants to retrieve a part of its money after the commissioning of the locomotives was canceled.
It was done with great pride in December 2014, when Prasa officially presented the Afro 4000 locomotive at the Cape Town train station. Routes such as the ones from Johannesburg to Durban or Cape Town were at stake. Stadler sold the locomotives to an intermediary, Swifambo Rail Leasing, which consequently delivered them to Prasa.
The twenty Afro 4000’s, a design directly based on Vossloh’s Euro 4000 model, were part of a larger order for 70 locos in total. The other 50 machines should have been delivered as dual-mode locomotives.
Corruption, safety issues, debate
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