Gautrain is an 80 km mass rapid transit railway system in Gauteng Provence, South Africa. There are two main routes on the system, a north-south line from Hatfield to Marlboro and an east-west line from Johannesburg Park station to OR Tambo International Airport.
Phase 1 will include stations at Sandton, Marlboro, Midrand, Rhodesfield and Johannesburg International Airport with completion in 2010. Phase 2 will extend the system from Sandton to Rosebank and Johannesburg Park Station and from Midrand to Centurion, Pretoria and Hatfield, completion in 2011.
Following the awarding of the contract to the Bombela Consortium in September 2006 Penton, through Bombardier Transportation a member of the Bombela Consortium, have worked closely with them on the voice alarm and public address system developing bespoke loudspeakers to be used in the lighting beams running along the length of each platform of the 10 stations.
Penton were introduced to Bombela by a major contractor of public address and voice alarm systems who had used them on the Heathrow Express rail link between Heathrow Airport and London city centre 13 years previously. Thirteen years later Penton’s speaker are still operating as well as they were when first installed.
A section of the lighting boom was sent to the UK with the brief that Penton should incorporate a loudspeaker that lay flush with the front of the lighting boom/cable management system (CMS) and was easy to install but reasonably robust.
Having successfully fulfilled the design brief, Bombardier was delighted with the outcome and said speakers were duly manufactured, delivered and installed.