Tanzania Railway Corporation (TRC) has announced that it shall receive its first shipment of a fleet of 42 electric trains it had ordered.

The trains are expected to arrive by November this year from Germany and South Korea.

According to Tanzania’s Minister for Works and Transport Dr Leonard Chamuriho, the arrival of the trains signify the beginning of train transport operations on the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) at the Dar es Salaam-Morogoro section.

The minister oversaw the signing of the contract between TRC and Hyundai Rotem earlier this week.

TRC Director General Masanja Kadogosa represented TRC while Senior Manager Hyundai Rotem Lee Se-Han represented his company.

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Chamuriho said once the electric trains arrive, testing of the SGR section from Dar es Salaam t Morogoro will begin.

“Earlier, we procured 42 electric locomotives from Germany and South Korea. Once they arrive in November, testing of the SGR section from Dar es Salaam to Morogoro will commence,” said Chamuriho.

On the other hand, Kadogosa revealed that in every contract they signed yet, a component compels the teaching of local experts on maintenance, signals and driving the locomotives.

“In every contract that we have signed so far, there is a component that compels the teaching of local experts on maintenance, signals and driving. We want more local engineers to be competent in all the aspects,” Kadogosa said.

Only 7.2 per cent of the construction of the Dar es Salaam-Morogoro section of the SGR remains for the entire project to be complete.

Tanzania injected $6.9 billion into its plan to modernize its railway network, which will increase efficiency as the locomotives will achieve maximum speeds of up to 160 kilometres per hour from the regular speeds of about 30-40 kilometres per hour.