By Olumide Adeyinka
A test run of the 45km Lagos Abeokuta standard gauge, which would begin in Iju, Lagos and terminates in Abeokuta will begin by February, the Managing Director of the Nigerian Railway Corporation Mr Fidet Okhiria said on Wednesday.
Speaking at Ijoko, Ogun State, during the routine inspection of the $1.7 billion project, Mr Okhiria who represented the Minister of Transportation Mr Rotimi Amaechi, said by February 6, the corporation will begin a test run of the tracks.
Mr Okhiria said the first phase of the project which is to link Lagos with Abeokuta by rail is on course, adding that the federal government will first deliver on this, while work will progress on linking Abeokuta with Ibadan, thereby completing the Lot II of the Lagos to Kano standard gauge project.
He said the contractor – China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation, has fully laid 38 kilometers of tracks from Kajola (km 41 to Abeokuta, km 79), while efforts to get the project from Kajola to Iju, in, is on course and would be achieved by February.
He said: “The contractor have said their equipment could lay 1.5 kilometres of tracks per day. That means that they could achieve the 10km distance between Kajola and Iju within seven days and we can start the test run of the tracks latest February 7.”
He expressed satisfaction at the speed of the contractor adding that with the civil works between Kajola and Iju completed, work could go on unhindered on the laying of tracks.
Okhiria who led the media and other members of the project monitoring committee to ride on first class train coaches on the tracks between Kajola and Abeokuta expressed satisfaction on the pace of the project.
He said two first class full air conditioned coaches have been drawn from the Itakpe-Warri standard gauge corridor to service the new rail line.
According to him, with a speed of 150 km/h, Lagos-Ibadan could be achieved within one hour, adding that such would have tremendous impact on housing stock and congestion witnessed in the nation’s urban centres.
Okhiria said the federal government has placed order for 30 locomotives and coaches and wagons in its bid to further boost its modernisation of the fixed and rolling stocks of the railway corporation.
He also praised the transparency of the compensation plans of the government which according to him has ensured the peaceful environment within which the contractor has been operating.