... but only five
locos will be
acquired per year
Alan Peat
TENDERS WILL go out shortly for Spoornet's R15-billion upgrade programme, which will replace locomotives and rolling stock over a 15 year period.
The programme can be expected to help overcome the present, and oft-recurrent, shortages of locos and wagons which have, for example, seen the cancellation of considerable numbers of export trains from City Deep to Durban in recent times.
This was attributed to loco shortages, but bulk mineral exporters have also frequently complained about shortages of wagons to haul their export consignments to the relevant coastal ports.
This has been caused by inadequate capital investment in recent years, which has resulted in low productivity and poor service.
But the new investment programme is unlikely to be a "quick-fix" solution, with the R1-bn a year allocation of the investment only likely to see Spoornet acquiring about five locos a year, according to c.e.o. Zandile Jakavula.
The continuing expansion of SA's general exports, Spoornet's concessioning of certain overborder railway systems (Zambian Railways network and the SA-Maputo rail line, for example), and the fast-growing demands of Coallink and Orex, Spoornet's coal and iron ore lines, place considerable pressure on the railways' stock of equipment.
In its fleet of 2 500 locos, it is having to use close to 250 of the old class 5E locos, for example, to keep up to steam, and they are now proving unreliable and anything but cost-efficient.
With Spoornet's locomotives averaging around 26 years in age, and wagon numbers having diminished, the railways have struggled to cope with the big extra tonnages from the export surge, particularly those of coal, iron ore and steel, and other mineral exports.
Many exporters point to this inadequate capacity failing to meet their needs, with frequent delays harassing their attempts to take advantage of the healthy growth in export demand.
But, said Jakavula, the new fleet will improve efficiency, reliability and safety - and speed up turnaround times.
He also points to Spoornet's forecast that standardising the fleet will save about R1-bn a year in maintenance costs alone.
Confirming what Spoornet spokesman, Mike Asefovitz, told FTW, Jakavula stated that the serious loss-maker, Spoornet's general freight business (GFB), was not intended for privatisation. Instead, he said, it will be merged with Coallink, and remain in the restructured Spoornet stable.
