‘Gautrain has taught valuable lessons on building a rail line’

Building a railway line is a costly business, said Jack van der Merwe, CEO of the Gautrain Management Agency. “To ensure success of a project you have to do a feasibility study and that entails spending a lot of money. You cannot just say, let’s build a line between Johannesburg and Durban and it is going to cost X per kilometre and then multiply it by 600. The process is complex and you have to make sure you don’t skip any of the steps.” Speaking at a recent conference in Sandton, Van der Merwe said one of the most valuable lessons learnt through the Gautrain Project was that there was no cutting of corners or free meals. He said he had been working on the Gautrain project for 14 years and hoped to see the second phase of the operation up and running in July. “It has been a long project and we have learnt many lessons along the way, of which the most important probably has been that a true public private partnership (PPP) means investment from both parties. It is not a free hand-out and you cannot skip vitally important steps.” Gautrain, which has been operational between Sandton and OR Tambo International Airport for the past year, last week launched the second phase of operations with the opening of the railway line between Rosebank in Johannesburg and Hatfield in Pretoria. According to Van der Merwe, four pillars have to be in place for the duration of a project. “You must have political will and commitment, the project must be viable, you have to have money to put on the table and the community must accept and see validity in the project. These pillars must be there simultaneously or the project will never get off the ground.” He said it was also important to have a strong team on board to manage the entire process and one single point of accountability was needed. “This project has been as complex as you can probably get in a PPP, but it has allowed South Africa to learn valuable lessons when it comes to building rail, be it for people or freight.”