NRC plans 24-hour transportation of containers from Apapa

In a major move that will address the lingering congestion and gridlock in the Apapa Area of Lagos State, the Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC) is to flag off 24hour movement of containers from the nation’s busiest port in Apapa Lagos to Ebute Metta.

From there trucks would evacuate the containers to various parts of Lagos and the country.

The new service is the NRC’s strategy to ease the traffic snarls which have become an albatross on Apapa road and its environs.

Last week, the Apapa traffic extended to Ikorodu along Onipanu/ Fadeyi with articulated vehicles and tankers blocking the road and virtually halting vehicular movement on the ever busy Ikorodu road prompting the state government to ban heavy duty vehicles within the state temporarily.

However, Director of Operations of NRC, Mr. Niyi Ali, said the new service which would commence next week would have the capacity to move 20 wagons of 20ft containers in a trip.

Addressing newsmen at the NRC headquarters in Lagos, Ali also cleared the air on the state of the N1.2 billion worth of tank wagons procured by the corporation five years ago for the movement of petroleum products, saying the tank wagons with the capacity to move 900,000 litres of petroleum products in a trip, are not rotting away contrary to reports in the media.

Already, the corporation has commenced the construction of another rail line within the NRC yard while two lines would be dedicated for the service from Apapa to Ebute Metta which is about eight kilometers.

The proposed operation is different from the existing freight movement of cargos, fertilizer and other items from Lagos to all parts of the state.

According to Ali, the service is in response to the suffering and hardship faced by Nigerian businesses in an attempt to evacuate their containers out of the port.

He said the corporation is looking at running four to five trips of container trains from Apapa to Ebute Metta daily which would translate into about 100 containers while 100 trucks would be saved the hassle of spending days trying to access Apapa.

The director explained that the corporation would partner with the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA) to manage traffic in the Ebute Metta area from where trucks would be evacuating the containers.

He said the operations would be carried out according to schedules in a way that trucks would come in and go immediately to avoid replicating the Apapa gridlock on Ebute Metta.

“The NRC is investing in infrastructure not just for commercial consideration but the economic benefit for the nation,” he said.

On the tank wagons for the movement of petroleum products, he said the NRC has been using the wagons to move diesel for its operations from the port to various stations across the country.

He said the wagons were kept within the NRC premises for safety, in order to prevent vandalisation of the facilities.