Call to move Africa’s freight back on to rail

in the north- south corridor in 1999 — stressed the importance of avoiding “working in silos” and being streamlined and sufficiently well- resourced to meet needs when they occur.

“We also have to be familiar with the abilities and constraints of the operations all along the corridor from Richards Bay to Ndola, Zambia or the Congo. It is important to know who you can go to for assistance if and when you are in difficulty, for example to deal promptly with a derailment that threatens to delay traffic all along the corridor for up to 14 days.”

But the north- south corridor is only one of several ambitious rail freight transport corridor projects in which Transnet is working closely with other national and regional rail authorities.

Most notably they include the Botswana Rail Link, involving the improvement and extension of rail links between the countries in a bid to boost trade and better connect Botswana to export markets.

Transnet is working with Kenya Rail ( where the infrastructural construction division of Transnet is partnering with Kenya in upgrading its ageing and incomplete industrial railway network) and Transnet is also participating in a Congo consortium aimed at addressing rail and port infrastructural development opportunities.

Sizakele Mzimela, president of the Southern African Railway Association ( Sara) — an Sadc- based nonprofit organisation whose primary function is to lobby for rail transport in the region and to promote regional and continental rail interconnectivity and cross- border operability — said there are persistent challenges to promoting rail as a viable and attractive alternative to other means of freight transport.

The reality is that we as railways need to come together and collaborate — irrespective of the state of infrastructure in different countries — adopting a corridor approach to obtaining capital investment

“Not least of these are challenges related to the state of infrastructure and rolling stock, the availability of rolling stock and the lack of available funding. It is a challenge trying to obtain collaborative funding for railways because each country in a corridor is responsible for a different part of the infrastructure and, for example, SA’s, Zimbabwe’s and Botswana’s rail infrastructure assets are all at different levels and that means different levels of work must be undertaken to facilitate more of a corridor approach to facilitate the movement of cargo and freight. At the same time, when countries try to raise capital for infrastructural development on an individual basis, their projects are unbankable.

“The reality is that we as railways need to come together and collaborate — irrespective of the state of infrastructure in different countries — adopting a corridor approach to obtaining capital investment. This is a Sara function, pulling the railway companies together, and there are a number of initiatives underway to try to ensure we do take such an approach,” she said.