MFLF Workgroup - Land Transport Sector

Context

Rail Transport is one of four focus areas within the Mpumalanga Freight Logistics Forum Modal Workgroup's Land Transport Sector and is discussed below. The other focus areas are:

• Border Posts
• Intermodal Interfaces
• Road Transport

On this page:

Overview
Rail in Mpumalanga
Maputo Corridor Railway Line
MFLF Objectives
Invitation to Participate

 

Rail Transport

The NFLS recognises the restoration of reliability in South Africa's rail transport sector as one of its fundamental objectives and the single most important challenge facing the freight logistics sector in the country.

It draws attention to the fact that whilst South Africa's bulk rail transport operations are some of the best in the world (e.g. the Sishen - Saldanha iron-ore line), the country's rail operations have lost market share to transporting time sensitive and higher value commodities to road transport, bucking the international trend whereby some of the world's best performing railway operators have experienced their greatest growth in market share in the container transport segment. There is also not consistency in the transportation of bulk, with iron-ore and coal for instance receiving significant attention, but with the transportation of other bulk freight such as timber and logs having a notorious reputation for unreliability.

To add insult to injury, this loss of market share occured at a time of sustained economic growth in the country. The inefficiency of rail operations have caused a spill-over of freight transport via road, creating in turn a new set of problems in that segment of the logistics system. The rehabilitation of the country's railway operations is geared towards moving a significant amount of suitable freight from the roads back to rail.

The NFLS identified the following as key challenges to improving the state of rail freight transport in South Africa:

• Low productivity
• Average age of locomotives are higher than best international practice
• Higher labour cost of lower skilled workforce in comparison to international best practice
• Productivity and efficiency gains not coupled by cost reductions which can be passed on to customers
• Customers rate operations below expectations in terms of reliability, equipment availability, price structure and the availability, reliability and state of rolling stock
• Ineffective environmental oversight by Rail Safety Regulator
• Lack of economic regulatory oversight

These challenges have to be addressed at the institutional level due to the structure of South Africa's monopolistic railway system, operated by Spoornet, a subsidiary of the parastatal logistics giant, Transnet, which is undergoing the largest reinvestment programme in the country's history. However in order for it to be responsive to the needs of its customers, stakeholder participation is key to its success. The MFLF is the best platform for stakeholders in the province to pariticipate in consultation and to ensure their interests are represented at the institutional level.

 

Rail in Mpumalanga

The Mpumalanga rail system generates the highest volumes of freight traffic in the country, spans 2,233 km and is the largest transporter of freight in the province. In 2003 - 2004, over 113 million tons of freight traffic moved through the province, of which only 18 million tons was transit traffic, whilst the Maputo Corridor carried about 12% of the provinces total rail traffic in general freight.

The Gauteng to Durban mainline (Natcor) is the principal line with a section from Balfour to Volksrust running through the province. In 2004, it carried over 12 million tons of freight of which roughly 75% of it was transit traffic and roughly 25% of it originated or terminated in the province. Of the provincial traffic, 95% of it was coal.

The Richards Bay (COALLINK) heavy-haul coal line transports over 60 million tons (53% of total) between collieries in Mpumalanga and Richards Bay

An important “secondary” mainline from Springs to Ermelo serves the SASOL 2 and 3 Plants at Trichardt and moves approximately 1,5 million tons of cargo per annum.

Five branch lines generate about 5 million tons of traffic per year, all of which is routed over varius main line sections. This includes chrome from the Steelpoort branch, iron ore from the Roossenekal branch and forestry traffic from the Graskop, Barberton and Lothair branches.

Source: Mpumalanga Freight Transport Databank (2006)

 

Maputo Corridor Railway Line

Rail along the Maputo Corridor has undergone a rehabilitation programme by Spoornet and its Mozambican counterpart CFM. The line is characterised by the transport of bulk freight, of which just under half of it is coal, around a quarter of it is magnetite and the remainder a variety of other bulk products such as sugar and steel.

The development of rail along the Maputo Corridor is of high importance to the MFLF and is an ongoing topic of discussion in the Modal Workgroup. Stakeholders are advised to review the minutes of the MFLF monthly meetings and the regular MCLI and MFLFemail newsletters.

 

MFLF Land Transport Sector Objectives - Rail Transport

Within the provincial context, the MFLF has set itself the following objectives:

• To promote the political intervention to ensure the implementation of a seamless rail service from Gauteng to Maputo
• Engage and work together with the rail partners of neighbouring countries, i.e. Spoornet (SA) and CFM (Mozambique) and Swazi Rail (Swaziland)
• To expedite the rail line stabilisation in order to increase the export volumes through the Maputo harbour
• To communicate progress on the rail seamless service agreements
• To communicate progress in operational efficiency improvements
• To establish a set of realistic operating parameters; agree and monitor them (i.e. train size, quantity of train slots; axle loads and turn around time performance)
• To confirm current and future cargo volumes
• To promote the restoration of rail reliability
• To promote the movement of rail friendly cargo currently on road back to rail in an orderly manner

The revival of the Maputo Corridor railway line between Spoornet and CFM promised significant operational improvements on the Gauteng to Maputo railway line by the middle of 2007.

 

Inviation to Stakeholders

All stakeholders are invited to participate in the Mpumalanga Freight Logistics Forum Workgroup - Land Transport Sector. If you are not already on the MFLF Secretariat's email distribution list, you can subscribe (note that this is a high volume distribution list) or you can keep up to date with upcoming MFLF events by regulalry checking our Upcoming Events page or through RSS.