The 2023–2024 “Young Talent Rail Program” training concluded in Douala on 12 March 2025, with the presentation of group projects in the presence of Mr Joel Hounsinou, General Manager of Camrail and Chairman of the jury for the first five of the eight scheduled project defences.
“I appreciate this concept and exercise because they coach young employees for better professional fulfilment. I encourage them to complete their assignments and never give up. Of course, the most impactful projects will be implemented in line with our available resources,” emphasised Mr Joel Hounsinou, General Manager of Camrail.
Nearly 40 participants, organised into teams of five, addressed various issues related to railway tracks, maintenance, locomotives, rolling stock, infrastructure, and operational excellence.
“We worked on operational excellence applied to locomotives—in particular, the BB1100 model. For these locomotives, electronic issues account for 49% of incidents. This is mainly because the components used for the EVR, the battery excitation regulator, are obsolete and, therefore, scarce. Our proposal to the jury was to replace the EVR with electronic boards. This solution should reduce incidents by about 30%,” summarised participant Mr Russel Baka.
It should be noted that before their project defences, participants received training modules on topics including project management fundamentals, safety management, the manager’s role within an organisation, and railway operations.
Launched in 2017 under the name DT Elites Program, the Young Talent Rail Program was later expanded to encompass all divisions of Camrail. Its objectives include strengthening and developing future “Managers” in key railway skills, building managerial impact, and ensuring they understand and embrace the strategic and operational directives set by top management.
“Staff development and training are central to Camrail’s Human Resources strategy, which invests an average of 200 million CFA francs each year in training. Within this framework, we have established priorities, including strengthening the managerial skills of mid-level supervisors. The Young Talent Rail Program, and the DT Elites Program before it, were created to meet these objectives. Today, we have an alumni community of 75 Young Talents, with 45 of them having experienced professional advancement from operational to supervisory roles,” explains Mr Henok Conrad Maleguel, Railways Training Coordinator at Camrail.
It is important to note that Camrail’s managerial experts supervised the trainees throughout their program, while the Training Department of Sitarail Côte d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso participated in the project defences via Teams.
