Rolling Stock Fleet Sizing

Fleet size requirements can be deduced from the train plan, plus appropriate allowances for spare trains to permit non‐trivial maintenance to be carried out.

Although achieving 85% (or more) of trains in service might be appropriate in a European context with larger ‘pools’ of trains and easier access to spares, African railways have traditionally achieved much lower levels of availability (even down to 25%). This has had severe and negative impacts upon both costs and reliability, and Ethiopia’s proposed National Railway Network will ensure the historical African average is bettered. A well‐managed train maintenance regime will be essential in achieving service reliability and hence sustaining traffic levels, but achieving 75% should be possible.

On this basis, it has been possible to make an indicative estimate of the passenger rolling stock initially required for services on the Moyale line, which is as follows (all figures in trainsets):

• 6 medium‐distance;

• 5 long‐distance;

This gives a total of 11 train sets. If formed of 8 coaches, and bought on the international market at typical prices of $1.25m USD per vehicle, the total cost would about $120m USD. Although NRNE might require a lower specification than some other railways, the costs of transportation will be significant.

Freight fleet requirements will need to be built up by flow but, as noted above, even if locomotives can be used on different trains, the ability to use wagons on different flows may be somewhat limited. This leads to an issue of ‘pool size’: relatively more spares are needed for small fleets of wagons. Nevertheless, fleets of wagons can be ordered incrementally as new traffic flows are identified.

Bogie wagons are generally recommended, as these minimise wear and tear on the track, as well as being efficient in terms of payload per wagon.

Wagon requirements for traffic flows identified so far include:

Oil Tanks ‐ One train of 15x 100‐tonne bogie oil tank wagons to serve Shashemene and Arba Minch twice per week from Djibouti, plus spares = 18 wagons. (These would be part of a much larger fleet).

Container Vehicles ‐ Container flats for Kenyan import/export traffic: 8 rakes of 30 bogie flat wagons + spares: total 250.

Stone and Aggregate ‐ 1 rake of 15 bogie box wagons (+ spare: total 18) are likely to be used on this line on a weekly train from Adama to perhaps Konso, but these wagons are primarily used on other flows, so their capital costs should not be included here.

Further information on size and location of current/potential mining and industrial developments is currently being assessed so that freight fleet size can be more accurately predicted and finalised.

The railway will also need its own vehicles for infrastructure maintenance purposes. These will include primarily ballast hopper wagons (for transport from quarry to railway yard, and for discharge at the site of trackworks; these wagons are potentially identical to those used for commercial stone traffic), and 18m to 20m flat wagons (for transporting track materials). The required fleet size of these will depend upon the relative use of labour and machinery in track maintenance and renewal programs, an area of work still being evaluated.

Дата добавления: 2015-07-20