The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, has given reasons why the Abuja-Lagos rail line cannot travel faster than 90 kilometres per hour.
Amaechi, a former governor of Rivers State disclosed that the locomotive can’t run beyond 90 kilometers per hour in order not to kill cattle on its route.
Vanguard quoted the Minister as saying the last time the locomotive ran at 100 kilometer per hour, it killed many cattle.
He said, “The reason we want to go back to narrow gauge is because, between Lagos and Kano, we have 30 million tonnes of cargo. Even if you do three rail lines, it cannot be enough.
“It took us 14 days to move coaches from Lagos to Abuja; every day we go and ask, how far, they say we are near Ogun state… 14 days.
“But if it were rail, the same day, it will get to Abuja. The kind of construction we are doing is 120 kilometres per hour (Km/h), it is a speed train.
“We are doing 90km/h with Abuja to Kaduna, the reason we are doing 90km/h is because there are cows everywhere, and we don’t want to kill cows. The other day they tried 100 and they killed how many cows, and they said ‘you people should replace the cows you killed.
“From that day, I have said let us maintain the 90km/h; at 120km/h you get to Kaduna in one hour. You can work in Kaduna and live in Abuja. It was initially one, but now, we have done four locomotives with 14 coaches.”
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