Lagos acquires new trains in its quest for higher economic status
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Lagos, the richest most cosmopolitan state in Nigeria, is working at full speed to deliver rail service by the first quarter of 2023, as it promised, to ease living and commuting for its 20 million residents to pay even more taxes and make it richer.
The project will also create new jobs by making better engineers of local talent.
Lagos on Tuesday took delivery of new trains from Milwaukee, United States for its Red Line Rail, to the excitement of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who tweeted it; and his Information and Strategy Commissioner Gbenga Omotoso facebooked.
“On 15th April, 2021, when I performed the ground breaking ceremony of our Red Line Metro Project, I announced that we would hit major milestones quickly.
“I am excited to announce that the twin Talgo intra city ten coach Metropolitan trains for the project have arrived in Lagos!” Sanwo-Olu tweeted with glee.
Omotoso announced on Facebook the delivery of the new trains is ahead of the rail system scheduled to begin operation by March 2023.
“Another major milestone in the drive by Lagos State to deliver the operation of the red line rail system by first quarter 2023,” he wrote.
“The Talgo series 8 Trains that were acquired for the red line have landed in Lagos. The 2 No. Ten and Eleven car trains which were bought from Milwaukee are here.
“It was necessary to decouple the train to 21 individual cars for effective transportation to Lagos.
“The train will be recoupled with the help of rolling stock engineers from Talgo, the company that manufactured the trains.
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Training local engineers
“The engineers will also train local engineers whilst they are here in order to equip our young people in the requisite skills,” Omotoso added.
“Once the recoupling is complete, the testing and commissioning will commence followed by full passenger operations first quarter 2023.
“Each train has the capacity to carry 1500 passengers and is expected to run on the red line rail from Agbado to Oyingbo, with the journey taking less than 30 minutes.”
Backstory
Nairametrics reports the 37-kilometre Red Line Rail project, which was flagged off by Sanwo-Olu in April 2021, has eight train stations from Agbado to Oyingbo in the first phase. It will end at Iddo in the second phase.
The Red Line is part of the vision of an integrated multimodal transportation system in the Lagos Strategic Transport Master Plan (STMP).
The STMP was developed by the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA) to create a world-class transportation network that builds up the profile of Lagos as the economic capital of Nigeria and Africa.
Lagos already has Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $84 billion that makes it the first largest economy in Africa.