Posted on 06/07/2010 9:40:25 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
South Africa will open the continent's first high-speed rail link on Tuesday, just in time to whisk a mass influx of World Cup fans Cup from the country's main airport into uptown Johannesburg.
The three billion dollar Gautrain project has been dogged by a series of problems since work began in September 2006, including strikes and excavation snags, and only one stretch of the line will open for business this week.
But authorities in Gauteng province, the country's economic powerhouse which includes both Johannesburg and Pretoria, say it will help transform the lives of traffic-frazzled commuters and draw in long-term investment.
"The good thing about what South Africa has done for the World Cup is that we have not done something for June 11 to July 11, we have put our money for life beyond that," Gauteng Premier Nomvula Mokonyane told journalists Saturday.
"Currently, congestion is a major threat to the development of the province where traffic volumes grow at a rate of seven percent per year on the main corridor between Johannesburg and Pretoria.
"This is going to be an asset and property of the people of South Africa for generations to come," she added.
Some 300,000 foreign visitors are expected in South Africa during the month-long tournament, the majority landing at OR Tambo International Airport.
A taxi ride from the airport into Johannesburg can take an hour but as of Tuesday, arrivals will be able to make the same journey in less than 15 minutes as the train hurtles along at speed of up to 160 kilometers (100 miles) an hour.
The first terminus to open is at Sandton, a swanky suburb which is home to the Johannesburg stock exchange and a massive shopping mall.
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
Who else thinks this train will define high speed as 20mph when the tracks are open at all fifteen years from now?
About 300 years to get the $3B back...
How long before some muslim terrorists cause a “man-made disaster” to this train?
And only 1 stretch is working...
The African Continent cannot (WILL not, more accurately) feed its assorted citizens, but, by G-d, it'll build (with Western nations' taxpayer funds, of course) some bloody railroad that works, if at all, at 30% or so.
G.F.Y. to all of the above.
Interesting way to protect tourists from crime: move them around in sealed metal tubes better known as “trains.”
...Coranic Caused Catastrophe....
SA is a basket case. Its going to go downhill now that they are following the Mugabe-Chavez model.
Ping! :-)
Rock and roll, mate.
Willie Green, is that you?
“A taxi ride from the airport into Johannesburg can take an hour but as of Tuesday, arrivals will be able to make the same journey in less than 15 minutes as the train hurtles along at speed of up to 160 kilometers (100 miles) an hour.”
100 MILES AN HOUR IS NOT A HIGH SPEED TRAIN.
Sounds like the press is pulling another McNabb.
You forget what country we are talking about...
yup. Like “high speed” internet in China being around dial-up speeds
While she said, definitely, that the hospitality of the people there was unsurpassed, she (a COMPLETELY apolitical person, btw) also said that that nation was disintegrating, and would be uninhabitable by civilised people within 5 years' time.
Three years to go.
Great, now you can go from one hellhole slum to another hellhole slum in less time. Good to know.
I have friends with relatives in SA and they went there a year or so ago and they said you (white people) don’t go a lot of places without guns and armed guards.
Great way to live.
South Africa is a huge country so its perfectly plausible to see it split up. And the international community needs to stay out of it.
Fine with me, m’FRiend. I believe, as you do, that the breakup is inevitable...although I’m not AT ALL as sanguine as you about the ultimate result. A replay, possibly slightly more civilised (possibly) of the last 15 years in Zimbabwe strikes me as more likely.
It’s different in South Africa. Most of the Whites that wanted to leave the country already have left. Remaining are a couple million Afrikaners and they’ll just circle their wagons once again.
$3B for a regular speed train?
$3B for a regular speed train?
I'm not familiar with this project, but what from what I can quickly google, the terrain apparently required extensive grading and construction of tunnels and viaducts.
But I can't figure out why they selected a conventional speed "high speed" train which is constrained to grades of less than 1%. I wonder if they considered using maglev. Maglev can travel on steeper gradients of up to 10% without requiring as much excavation. The elevated guideway also eliminates many of the problems/hazards/costs/delays associated with grade level road crossings.
Oh, let's not forget... Although most of SA's electricity is generated from coal, they have been operating nuclear power plants since the early '80s, and have also been working on pebble-bed reactor technology.
Picture a train flying 200+ mph down the tracks with several hundred people on top of cars and hanging off the sides.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.