The construction of Gibela’s R1-billion train factory at Dunnottar, in Ekurhuleni, is on schedule, says the rail consortium in a project update.

Gibela has been contracted to supply the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa with 600 new passenger trains, in a deal worth R51-billion.

The first 20 trains are being imported from Brazil, with the remaining 580 to be built at the Dunnottar site. Gibela will also provide maintenance and engineering services at the facility, as well as training in railway-specific artisan skills.

Construction work on the Dunnottar facility is divided into seven packages, namely plant rescue, site clearance, bulk earthworks and civil infrastructure; main site buildings; supplier park buildings; rail infrastructure; electrical reticulation and equipment; mechanical; and cranes.

To kick off package one, Trencon Construction, Gibela’s contractor for site clearance, bulk earthworks and civil infrastructure, was tasked with an indigenous plant rescue operation.

With the help of Xihungaso Construction Services, a black women-owned construction services company, Trencon Construction appointed a workforce of mostly disabled workers and safely removed more than 10 000 indigenous plant species from the Dunnottar site.

When the construction programme is complete, the indigenous plant species will be replanted on site.

Once this was completed, Trencon Construction began site clearance, as well as bulk earthworks development of the civil infrastructure. This included mass earthworks, fencing and hydrology.

Work on package two is currently in progress. This package is the most extensive in terms of time and employment.

The tender to complete package two was awarded to a joint venture (JV) between Trencon Construction and Black Jills Engineering.

The JV has to complete the main site buildings, including the training centre.

The foundations for the main site buildings have already been laid, and construction teams have started to set up the steel structures of the main site buildings.

“This major milestone of structural steel installations to the foundations started towards the end of August,” says Gibela construction manager Vernon Colbert.

“We are faced with very tight deadlines to accommodate the industrialised fit-out of the different workshops, but we are on track.”

Gibela says work packages five, six and seven will be awarded soon.

The 4 000 m2 training centre has to accept people by October, with the first manufacturing building to be completed in March next year.

Train production is set to start in the second quarter of 2017.

Around 400 workers are currently employed on the Dunnottar site, with around 50% of these workers recruited from neighbouring areas such as Kwa-Thema, Duduza and Tsakane.