NRZ pilots solar run train yard at Heany Junction

The National Railways of Zimbabwe has initiated a move to solar energy on its train yards with a pilot run at Heany junction in Umguza District

NRZ chief operations officer Mrs Ainah Dube-Kaguru, told Chronicle in an interview at ZITF that constant power cuts had impacted efficiency with train schedules left in shambles.

“..as NRZ, we have been so dependent on Zesa for powering our yard and our installations, so we have started to use solar in our yards as an alternative power source. We have started with Heany station, which is about 30km from Bulawayo and we will then see how we progress from there.

“A yard is where we have a number of railway lines where our trains arrive and depart from. There is a mainline that connects one city to the next and when trains depart, they depart from the station or yard,” said Mrs Dube-Kaguru.

We want them to be lit all the time because we do shunting operations, we will be breaking them and making them up and sometimes this is done at night and because of the load shedding, we had to think about an alternative energy source and that is solar,” she said

Mrs Dube-Kaguru said the solar infrastructure will be guarded 24 hours a day to prevent vandalism and theft that have beset the parastatal.