Keeping transport
moving
Chinese grant
followed Italian
loan to make it
all possible
Phase one of an R8 million upgrade of the Matsapha Dry Port has been completed by owner Swaziland Railways, with the conclusion of civil works to prepare ground surface for new loading cranes.
Controller of Property for Swaziland Railways, Zakhele Lukhele, reports a 10% increase in the number of handling containers using the facility in 1999, 6 036 compared with 5 432 the previous year.
Built in 1993 at the western end of the Matsapha Industrial Site, the dry port, officially known
as the Inland Container Depot,
targeted a goal of eventually handling 80% of freight traffic into
and out of Matsapha. Volume increased 25% per annum during the first five years of operations.
Currently, one train leaves the facility daily for the Durban seaport, departing at 18h00, and arriving at 21h00 the following day after 26 hours in transit.
Cost of the dry port upgrade is being financed by a grant from the Republic of China (Taiwan). Last year, the Italian government underwrote a low-interest R67m loan to Swaziland Railways to rehabilitate its line to Mozambique.
The Ministry of Customs and Excise has made the site a Customs Clearance point, and imported containers are not unloaded from their rail wagons until they have been inspected by customs agents.
Off-loaded trains are immediately loaded with containers for export to minimize time. About 30 containers are loaded or off-loaded daily.
Trains using the port average
20 wagons. The facility can accommodate a train of 33 wagons and two locomotives. The maximum train size allowed in Swaziland is 40 wagons, and these are split in two when they arrive at Matsapha. This has not been tagged as a problem, however, and no expansion is planned to accommodate longer trains.
Handling cranes will of necessity be improved. Presently, a 25- tonne WOLFF portal crane, whose image has appeared on so many profiles of the Matsapha industrial park it has become an icon, straddles one rail track, and can lift two containers at a time. The crane, which handles three- and six- metre containers, can clear three wagons, but then the train must be moved. The mechanism is slow. Further, down time is approximately 25%, and the railroad reports that breakdowns frequently last a full day, with three-day periods of inactivity not uncommon.
A planned replacement portal crane will be mobile, permitting it to offload an entire stationary train with greater speed and efficiency.
A 35-tonne mobile crane on lease from Spoornet handles 12- metre containers on a 90-metre length of rail that can accommodate six rail wagons.
The dry port upgrade resulted from a 1998 study that bluntly stated that if infrastructure and handling improvements were not implemented, customers would turn to road transport, with dire economic consequences for Swaziland Railways.
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