Keeping up steam - Financial Mail

[John Ashworth]

Keeping up steam

By David Williams
05 February 2010
Financial Mail

Timber is one of the commodities that is ideal for rail: it is heavy, easily loaded and unloaded, and delivery must be frequent and regular. The other advantage of a timber train is that it removes dozens of heavy lorries from rural and trunk roads. Historically, rail had the lion's share of timber traffic in SA, with many dedicated branch lines. Yet the traffic has been steadily lost to road.

The latest loss to the rail network is the closure of two major branch lines in KwaZulu Natal, from Pietermaritzburg to Greytown and to Kokstad (see map). These used to be busy services, conveying passengers and general traffic, but only timber survived - until now. The last train ran on January 18. Transnet will not comment on the reported closures.

Hendrik de Jongh, Sappi Forests MD, admits the company's use of rail "has been reduced in some areas, but this is due entirely to the service delivery capability of Transnet Freightrail. Rail remains the preferred mode of transport for Sappi." A key destination for the wood is the Saicor pulp operation at Umkomaas on the coast.

Generally, the shift of goods traffic from rail to road over the past 30 years has been encouraged by Transnet's inefficiencies and uncompetitive tariffs. But another incentive has been the maximum axle-loading, high by global standards, allowed for lorries on SA's roads. In KZN, the provincial government has now raised these even higher on two roads, the N2 highway and the regional R612.

Special dispensation has been given to timber companies such as Sappi and Mondi to use new "PBS" (performance-based standards) vehicles. These are 28% longer and may carry 22% more load than their predecessors in the industry.

"PBS is one of the most exciting heavy transport programmes in SA," says Mondi head of transport technology Des Armstrong. "The aim is to improve payload efficiency and performance, with the added benefit of increased safety and reduced road damage." The PBS licences were granted as part of a pilot study by the department of transport. But critics say that safety on the single-lane R612 will be severely compromised.

Mondi says the PBS project is "completely unrelated to the rail vs road debate". Sappi's De Jongh says: "It was never the intention to develop these trucks to reduce or cease rail usage."

A potential casualty of the branch line closure is an admirable project (Sisonke Stimela) to stimulate the local economy. The Ingwe municipality, which serves Creighton, Donnybrook and Bulwer, has designed and facilitated investment of millions of rand in a tourism route that includes the early monasteries, bird-watching and, of course, the stunning scenery of the region. At the heart of the plan is a luxury steam-hauled passenger train, running from Pietermaritzburg and overnighting at Donnybrook.

So committed is the Ingwe municipality to the project that it has not only restored the historic railway station at Creighton, but has built the new municipal offices in the station grounds. The irony of the timing of the line's closure is that the train - with old sleeper coaches restored with the support of Rohan Vos, of Rovos Rail fame - is now ready to start operations.

But Ingwe's Dudley Smith - who moved from his post as municipal corporate services manager to drive the project - says all is not yet lost. Transnet Freightrail CEO Siyabonga Gama was "hugely supportive," says Smith, and Transnet will transfer the branch to the department of transport rather than lift the rails. There is an undertaking to maintain the line for two years while private concessioning is explored.

Apart from the rail tourist operation, Sappi has not ruled out applying for concessions to operate such lines. (See also "Sending the right signals".)


Sending the right signals

05 February 2010
Financial Mail

There is so much that needs to be built in SA that we can hardly afford to neglect and destroy sound assets that we already have. Thankfully there are signs that government, in the form of Transnet, is beginning to understand this.

The national rail network was established as a matter of economic necessity in the first three decades of the 20th century. Many rural towns and farming areas were served by branch lines, many of which were always going to be uneconomic. Indeed, until the 1980s, the railways enjoyed substantial permit and tariff protection against road hauliers. That changed, but the deregulation was so rapid that rather too many babies were thrown out with the bathwater.

Spoornet, the predecessor of Transnet Freightrail, pursued the closure of many lines with no less zeal than it had shown in defending protectionism, while objecting in principle to any form of public-private partnership. The first privatisation (in 1987) - the Alfred Country Railway from Port Shepstone to Harding - was delayed to the point of being made unviable, and then continually obstructed by bureaucrats. In other cases, lines that might have been saved instead lay decaying for so long that privatisation ceased to be an option. When the Eastern Cape government managed to reopen the link between East London and Mthatha two years ago, it cost taxpayers over R40m just to rehabilitate the track.

In KwaZulu Natal, two long timber-carrying branch lines have been closed (see "Keeping up steam") to Transnet trains, but this time the utility is apparently seeing a bigger picture. It is said to be working with local stakeholders to at least create the conditions for preservation of the line, and so help grow tourism and therefore jobs.

Much has already been lost, but with this evident departure from centralised, blunt decision-making, much may still be retained.

[Stefan Andrzejewski]

Where are the gray suited bean crunches. Surely the numbers must show that sending the timber by rail must be much cheaper than by road. These road haulers should be pay license for upkeep of these roads instead of relying on the Provincial coffers. Same story as the coal.