The trains first phase connects downtown Johannesburg with its international airport and a highly populated suburban area to the north.
"Costing a massive 24bn rand ($3bn; £2.1bn), South Africa hopes that its revolutionary rapid transit system will bring some much needed change to its outdated and sometimes unreliable transport system.
Its top speed is 160 km/h (100 mph) - a long way from the world's fastest trains but still far superior to the locomotives chugging along most of the rest of the continent's tracks, which mostly date from the colonial era."
