Pretoria - Transnet Freight Rail (TFR) says it is introducing a 200-wagon train service named Shongololo on its export coal line that will run directly from Richards Bay Coal Terminal (RBTC) to mines in Mpumalanga.
This will give Transnet the capacity to exceed 81 million tons per annum in the next financial year, should the coal be available.
“Decreasing the handling processes of trains will allow for higher reliability, which will equate to improved sustainability and service predictability. This is part of the scheduled railway philosophy introduced by TFR two years ago,” TFR chief executive Siyabonga Gama said on Tuesday.
Project Shongololo (millipede) entails bypassing the Ermelo yard leg of the service, which will significantly reduce train handling processes. Before the introduction of the service, trains were built at the Ermelo yard through a process involving dispatching 100 empty wagons to the mines for loading and then returned to the Ermelo yard to be built into 200-wagon trains, which are then forwarded to RBCT.
This process, said TFR, was cumbersome, involving significant train handling and shunting to couple and de-couple wagons.
The new project will drastically reduce cycle times from an average of 58 to 41 hours for locomotives and for wagons, a decrease from 63 to 48 hours.
Project manager Pragasen Pillay said the new service will increase weekly railed export coal capacity from the current 1.4 million tons per week to a potential capacity of 1.85 million tons per week, equating to a 30% increase in current capacity.
“The number of export coal trains per day will increase from 25 to a potential 32 trains. And moving into the fourth quarter of this year, we will see 34 trains per day,” said Pillay.
TFR will now be poised to deliver for the coal sector, both domestic and export, in excess of 2 million tons per week – an annualised delivery of 96 million tons.
The service will additionally free up train slots, which can be utilised to address other domestic demands, such as coal for Eskom’s Majuba Power Station.
Introducing this methodology allows TFR to fulfil its mandate, which is to lower the cost of doing business in South Africa. – SAnews.gov.za
