tunnel borer for gautrain gets a name
14 December 2007

Gauteng Premier Mbhazima Shilowa, whose name has become synonymous with the Gautrain rapid rail link, yesterday hailed the economic benefits already brought by the train, but warned that for the province to grow it needed reliable electricity.  His comments came as Eskom announced the second week of load-shedding because of planned and unplanned outages at power plants, which had brought daily power cuts of about two-and-a-half hours to all parts of SA, and which were already affecting small businesses.

Gauteng is being pressed by the government to achieve 8% growth by 2014 so that the country can make its 6% growth target.

Speaking at the naming ceremony of SA’s first tunnel-boring machine — a R230m machine to be used to excavate 6km from Rosebank station to Park station — Shilowa said the train had already injected R440m into the economy in the past 14 months through the purchase of local materials, goods and services.

“Spatial planning in this province will never be the same again. The suburbs and cities are already undergoing major upgrades and business are looking at developments at the stations, but if we are going to grow the economy, we must ensure that there is reliability when it comes to electricity," he said.

The premier said the arrival of the boring machine was a “point of no return” and would help to move the province — and the Bombela consortium building the train — faster towards the goal of completion.

It is tradition to name the boring machines before they go underground, and SA is to be no different. Shilowa named SA’s 145m-long tunnel-boring machine Imbokodo (the rock) in honour of the women who marched to the Union Buildings in 1956 under the slogan “Wathint’ Abafazi Wathint’ Imbokodo” (“When you strike at women, you strike a rock”).

It will be in the same company as an 80m-long machine in Hong Kong called Xiaolongu (a hero in Chinese martial arts ), and Terra Nautilus and Pipi in Australia, Emerald Mole in the US, Envira in Canada and Delilah in the UK.

The CEO of the Gautrain Management Agency, Jack van der Merwe, said the tunnel-boring machine would start boring the underground portals in January and would be in operation 24 hours a day.

Shilowa admitted yesterday to guests from the government and business that the train — once dubbed the “Shilowa Express” by the media because of his spirited support of the project — nearly cost him some of his friends, particularly in the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu).

The machine, designed in Germany, was custom made to deal with the unusual conditions found at the station, such as a high water table and differing degrees of hard rock and soft, water-clogged soil.

Chantelle Benjamin, www.businessday.co.za