Rail coal solution has been too long in coming

IT’S the season of goodwill, and hidden among the many great acts of love and charity we will witness over the next month, there will also be plenty of opportunists looking to milk the unwise and the innocent.

Apart from the regular seasonal scammers, the politicians will also be out in force, with 2024 being an election year.

Expect to see a number of good deeds done in exchange for votes which, by the way, is not unique to this country – it’s the way all politicians operate.

However, sometimes one is blindsided even by positive events.

Without looking a gift horse in the mouth, one must question the timing of Thursday’s announcement by Transnet that extra trains will be delivering coal to the Port of Richards Bay, starting from mid-December.

In summary, Transnet Freight Rail promises one extra train per day, for seven days, which will equate to carrying about 15 400 tonnes per week and

739 200 tonnes per annum.

Better still, this will translate to 21 747 road truck trips per annum that in theory will be replaced by rail deliveries, thanks to four more locomotives being deployed.

And there’s more good news: TFR will in the first quarter of 2024 bring in an additional seven trains, raising the complement to 35 per week.

In addition, repairs, upgrades and improvements will further enhance the train service.

Extra trains have been the solution from the outset, something the city mayor and others have been at pains to utter relentlessly on public platforms.

But why has it taken so long to get this kind of positive response?

Is it because the mayor and his council have taken legal steps against Transnet over the massive extra costs that have come with the coal truck chaos, and have refused to back down even under ministerial pressure?

Or, cynics might ask, is it because the truck owners were given enough time to cash in on the export bonus that came about because of the invasion of Ukraine and resultant embargo on buying Russian coal?

The truck problem has been with us for many, many months and what is being done now could have begun ages ago.

That being said, we welcome the news, and trust sanity and safety will soon prevail on our roads – not to mention the clean air we will again be able to breathe.