THE Gautrain no longer believes it will soon need more trains to stop overcrowding during peak times.
It also no longer thinks a big expansion to its closed rail network – which would have given residents of Soweto and Cosmo City easy access to the high-end system – could start by 2024.
The Gautrain Management Agency (GMA) had cancelled tenders first issued in 2019 seeking to buy second-hand trains from abroad, Engineering News and Moneyweb first reported on Thursday.
The trains were expected to come from the United Kingdom, where operators are upgrading their fleets, and were intended to prevent congestion on key lines during peak times, on the assumption that passenger numbers would continue to grow steadily.
In reality, demand for the service has fallen off a cliff, with usage down 70% in December and down 80% in January, after SA’s newly-hardened lockdown was imposed.
The GMA now says it
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