Confirming the replacement of a 5.6Km section of railway track, the Ethiopian Railways Corporation (ERC) announced that the contractor, China Railway Engineering Corporation (CREC), would bear the cost. The scheduled time for the finalisation of the project will not be upon compromised either.
The contractor has been forced to replace the tracks due to its neglect of earlier advice from the consultant of the Addis Abeba Light Railway (LRT) project, the Sweroad Swedish National Road Consulting Firm.
The Consultant, which is being paid 14 million dollars to supervise the construction of the LRT, warned the Contractor to change the rail tracks from the very beginning of the project, during the design process.
The contractor, however, proceeded to the construction stage without adjusting the design in accordance with the suggestion of the consultant. A 5.6Km section of track was finally found to be against the order of the consultant. This led to the recent activity of the contractor unfixing each of the 25m long rail tracks in order to replace them, according to Behaylu Sintayehu (Eng), the LRT project manager.
The contractor delayed applying the order of the consultant until now and moved to changing the tracks in its own time, said Behaylu, during a media briefing he held on Friday June 13, 2014, with journalists gathered on the railway path from Megenagna to Ayat.
“The total cost of the changed railway tracks will be covered by the contractor, because the ERC awarded the project on a turnkey basis,” said Behaylu.
The ERC is unwilling to disclose the estimated cost of the replacement, while representatives of the CREC and the Consultant were inaccessible despite repeated attempts to include their views.
On a sloped road with an incline of lower than four percent, the joint of the rail should be welded, rather than joined with a screw. In addition to this, those rail tracks with screw holes have been changed.
The railway tracks, which were installed by joining each together, create a risk of derailment. This is in addition to the noise it makes and discomfort to the passengers, as main reasons mentioned by Behaylu leading to the change.
The Corporation commenced the LRT project in 2011 by awarding a 475 million dollar contract to the CREC for the construction of a 31Km double-track electrified light rail, as phase one of the 75Km planned for the city. The Export Import (EXIM) Bank of China extended 85pc in loans, while the government of Ethiopia covered the rest.
The construction of the railway is underway in three directions, including 23Km on ground level, 7.33Km of bridge construction and 900 metre’s through underground tunnel construction.
The two-line rail tracks extend 16.99Km from East-to-West, stretching from Ayat Village to Tor Hayloch. On the North-to-South route, a 16.7Km rail track will pass through Piassa (Menelik Square) to the Kaliti Training Centre. The two directions will share a common track for about 2.7Km.
Currently, the progress of the project has reached 63pc and the issue of replacement tracks will not delay the scheduled completion date at the end of the next fiscal year, 2014/15. The first batch of five trains will arrive in September according to Behaylu.
A single rail track has a length of 25m. The changing of track and welding of the rail joint is taking place at every 25 metres on the Megenagna to Ayat route.
Even if the contractor had not changed the tracks, the consultant will not approve the road qualification and the ERC will not pay the Company. That is why there has been no delay.
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