Principal product engineer Imran Karim said the new SCL-16 wagons were built at Transnet Rail Engineering‘s Uitenhage depot and put through their paces at the Koedoespoort rolling stock test and development facility.

Karim said Transnet Rail Engineering‘s mandate had been to develop the largest possible wagon that the parastatal‘s rail system could accommodate.

“It had to be a double-deck wagon with the maximum spatial envelope for cars.

“Current motor vehicle profiles from all the vehicle manufacturers were taken into consideration during the design phase of the wagon,” added Karim.

There had been growing popularity recently for sport utility vehicles, he said.

In addition, sustained growth in minibus sales over the past decade was being bolstered by the government‘s ambitious R7-billion taxi recapitalisation project.

Unfortunately, the existing Transnet Freight Rail SCL-9/10 car carrier wagons could neither accommodate the roof height of these taller vehicles nor, in many cases, their width, Karim explained.

The biggest problem facing the designers of the new wagon was to find a way of carrying the larger vehicles within what the railway industry terms the “loading gauge”.

This sets the cross-section limits of every item of rolling stock, in effect forming an invisible gate through which every wagon must be able to pass without touching.

To maximise the car-carrying capacity of the new SCL-16, the designers took the cross section to the upper limits of the loading gauge.

The new design will be able to accommodate most vehicles available in South Africa within the double- deck configuration.

However, Karim said a major innovation was the provision of hydraulically powered upper decks.

“These can be raised to the roof of the wagon to create space for vehicles such as SUVs and minibuses,” he said.

“The new wagons with their moveable inner decks provide the transporter with considerable flexibility.

“It will be possible to run trains in one direction in double-decker configuration, and to return as single-deck, ensuring revenue generation on both legs of the journey,” he added.

The SCL-16 has its own on-board hydraulic system, running off normal 220-volt mains power.

When the deck is being raised or lowered, a shrill siren warns all in the vicinity.

Currently, road transport of motor vehicles in South Africa is on open-sided trucks, exposed both to weather – including damaging hail – and pilferage whenever the vehicle is stationary.