Lagos State government has taken delivery of new trains from Milwaukee, United States, for its red line rail project.

The state Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Gbenga Omotoso, made this known in a statement on his Facebook page on Tuesday.

Omotoso noted the delivery of the new trains was ahead of the rail system, scheduled to begin operation in the first quarter of 2023.

Omotoso wrote, “Another major milestone in the drive by Lagos state to deliver the operation of the red line rail system by first quarter 2023.

“The Talgo series 8 Trains acquired for the red line have landed in Lagos. The 2 No. ten and eleven car trains bought from Milwaukee are here.

“It was necessary to decouple the train to 21 individual cars for effective transportation to Lagos.

“The train will be recoupled with the help of rolling stock engineers from Talgo, the company that manufactured the trains.

“The engineers will also train local engineers whilst they are here in order to equip our young people in the requisite skills.

“Once the recoupling is complete, the testing and commissioning will commence followed by full passenger operations first quarter 2023.

“Each train has the capacity to carry 1500 passengers and is expected to run on the red line rail from Agbada to Oyingbo, with the journey taking less than 30 minutes.”

Announcing the arrival of the trains, the state governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, tweeted, “On 15th April, 2021, when I performed the ground breaking ceremony of our Red Line Metro Project, I announced that we would hit major milestones quickly.

“I am excited to announce that the twin talgo intra city ten coach Metropolitan trains for the project have arrived in Lagos!”

Punch