A CEREMONY was held today at Transnet Rail Engineering's (TRE) Koedoespoort facility in South Africa to mark the signing of a contract between Transnet and GE South African Technologies (GESAT) for an additional 43 C30ACi Class 43 diesel locomotives.

 

Production of the additional 2.5MW Co-Co locomotives will begin in the second quarter of 2012 following the completion of the initial order for 100 units. The first 10 class 43s were built at GE's Erie plant in Pennsylvania, and the locomotives are now being supplied as kits for assembly by GESAT and TRE at Koedoespoort, which rolled out its first completed class 43 last July. The first locomotive from the second batch will be delivered to Transnet Freight Rail in June 2013.

Transnet CEO Mr Brian Molefe says more than 65% of the contract value for the second batch of locomotives can be considered local content, which is higher than the level achieved in the initial tranche.

According to Transnet, the 143 locomotives will be deployed on the Richards Bay heavy-haul line (53 units), the Sishan Saldanha heavy-haul line (30) the Witbank - Komatipoort line (32), and domestic coal trains (28).

The C30ACi is the first ac diesel-electric locomotive to be introduced in Sub-Saharan Africa.

 

Photo: SAR Connecta