China Railway eyes $30 billion SA rail project

[John Ashworth]

China Railway eyes $30 billion SA rail project - Bloomberg

August 24, 2010
Business Report

China Railway Group is in talks with South Africa's government to build a $30 billion high-speed rail network, Bloomberg News said on Tuesday, citing the chairman of the Chinese firm.

The talks are at an early stage and no funding is in place, although the company has signed an agreement with South Africa's Standard Bank, Li Changjin said at an investor forum in Beijing, according to Bloomberg.

No one was immediately available for comment at Standard Bank, Africa's biggest lender by assets. Standard Bank is 20 percent owned by China's Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.

Ahead of the 2010 soccer World Cup, South Africa launched the initial phase of the continent's first high-speed urban train, which cost 24 billion rand ($3.24 billion).

South Africa's transport minister Sibusiso Ndebele in April proposed the construction of a multi billion-rand high-speed train network linking Johannesburg and the city of Durban.

Ndebele said at the time he would ask the cabinet in this financial year to approve a feasibility study.

South Africa wants Chinese banks to help fund the project and China Railway wants South Africa to contribute up to 40 percent of the capital, Li told Bloomberg. - Reuters

[Chris Janisch]

God help us. They cannot even support PRASA!

[Dylan Knott]

And the locos supplied to Transnamib are to be sold as scrap.

[Geoff Pethick]

Its only the first four which were ordered in a hurry to a dodgy spec that are being sold, most of the other 17 are still giving good service. Although only of the same nominal power as a Class 33 a pair will haul 1800 tons as opposed to 1400 tons of the 33s.

[John Ashworth]

CHINA-SOUTH AFRICA RAIL AGREEMENT

Posted on 30 August 2010 by Railways Africa Editor

From SA government information service Buanews:

“Transport Minister Sibusiso Ndebele today [25 August 2010] signed a ground-breaking agreement on railways and other transport-related matters with Chinese Railway Minister Liu Zhijun. Ndebele is part of a South African delegation in China led by President Jacob Zuma during his three-day state visit.

“He said through rail, South Africa could move from being a developing country to a developed country by transporting people and goods efficiently, effectively and with the least cost to the environment and economy. ‘We are confident that our friends in the world including the Chinese can help us leapfrog many stages on our journey to becoming a developed country,’ he said.

“Zhijun said his country was willing to share its expertise in the development of railway networks. ‘We are willing to share this expertise with South Africa. We operate 86,000km of railway track, 7,000km of high-speed rail, and we have 13,000km of high-speed projects under construction. We operate the largest network of high-speed rail in the world. The Shanghai to Beijing railway line is the largest in the world, but in addition we are specialists in the development of highland rail, high-speed rail, upgrading of networks and their maintenance,’ he said.

“The agreement recognises the need to find new approaches for consolidating, expanding and deepening the rapid developments in the transport sector. It takes into consideration the framework of the New Partnership for
Africa’s Development (Nepad) and the Forum on China-Africa Co-operation (Focac). It seeks to promote investments, industry, trade and co-operation between South Africa and China in the area of rail.

“The railways agreement will foster close co-operation in rail infrastructure maintenance and development, financing, network safety and regulation, technology transfer, harmonisation of technical standards and human resource
development. The agreement includes identifying research institutions and private organisations such as universities and private companies that have the technical and financial capacity to implement the specific projects in the transport sector.

“The two countries agreed that there will be an exchange of engineers and related professionals and broad cooperation in the areas of intelligent transport systems, environmentally sustainable and labour-intensive best practices.”

[Steve Appleton]

Why does this government always seem to want to go for the "big cooperative political solution" and spend inordinate amounts of time and effort on huge, expensive projects that are obviously unaffordable when all the average person (and business) needs is for the existing infrastructure to be funded and managed properly, be expanded where necessary, and made more efficient so as to provide a reasonably reliable and sufficiently speedy service? To do that is not rocket science and well within the capabilities of many SA companies themselves if government would just get off the high horse and facilitate instead of hinder.

From recent posts eleswhere on this forum, it seem that other parts of Africa have woken up to that and have recently moderated and restructured their once grand plans -- East Africa, for instance.

[Jerome West]

Steve and others I have posted an extract from an internal PRASA newsletter about the visit with photos at http://www.friendsoftherail.com/phpBB2/ ... 316&t=7525 but I know this is the wrong place and I am sure that it will be moved shortly.

My biggist fear is that the new trains will get the nickname "Fong Kong" like all the other cheap merchandise found in the street markets in JHB.

[John Ashworth]

the existing infrastructure to be funded and managed properly, be expanded where necessary, and made more efficient so as to provide a reasonably reliable and sufficiently speedy service

it seem that other parts of Africa have woken up to that and have recently moderated and restructured their once grand plans -- East Africa, for instance

I'm not sure about that, Steve. If you look at this post, it seems that East Africa does still have a grand plan to build new standard gauge lines, precisely because they have decided that it is neither efficient nor economic for "the existing infrastructure to be funded and managed properly, be expanded where necessary, and made more efficient so as to provide a reasonably reliable and sufficiently speedy service".

The argument is not about standard gauge versus metre/Cape gauge per se. We all know that South Africa and Australia provide examples where the smaller gauges do carry fast and heavy trains. However East African railways were built in a hurry, on the cheap, using the existing technology more than a century ago. It is the curves and gradients that rule out fast and heavy trains in East Africa, not the gauge. There is now a strong opinion surfacing there that building a completely new railway along different alignments will be more cost-effective than trying to upgrade the existing one. Once that decision has been made, then standard gauge becomes a viable option. Whether it would cost more than a completely new metre-gauge line designed for heavy loads and high speeds I don't know, but there should be savings in being able to buy off-the-shelf items. Given that virtually all East African locos and rolling stock are overdue for replacement (apart from the newer privately-owned Magadi soda factory stock), buying a complete new standard gauge fleet is unlikely to cost more than buying a new metre-gauge fleet.

Whether those same arguments hold for South Africa, I don't know. It has a much larger existing network which is in better condition than East Africa's, and also has a more up to date fleet. But the mould has already been broken by creating a new, self-contained standard gauge network in Gauteng. If specific corridors are identified which can support a new railway network, possibly along new alignments which would not have been feasible to construct 150 years ago, it's at least worth considering, isn't it? Whether Durban-Jo'burg has that potential, I don't know. No doubt someone in China is analysing road and air traffic figures to see what the potential market is. New railway routes and improved services do attract new passengers and freight. Both East and South Africa in their modern forms were largely created by the building of new railway lines, admittedly in a different era. However an obvious modern example is the Channel Tunnel - a few years ago there were zero passengers travelling by train between Britain and the continent, whereas now the railway has a huge share of the market. While in Britain people tend not to want trains passing through their villages because of the noise (hence NIMBY - "Not In My Back Yard, mate"), I understand that in France towns and villages were actively lobbying for new high speed lines to come through their "back yards", knowing that it would boost the local economy. Rail passenger numbers in Britain have jumped dramatically in the last 15 years due to the provision of better and faster (even though not cheaper) services.

So, while the economics of it still have to be proven, I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand.

[Steve Appleton]

John, you are right. The standard gauge proposals have not been totally dropped. However there seems to be a new move to improve and expand secondary routes and branches in East Africa, as well as the new Nairobi suburban extension plan, which presumably to be compatible would also be metre gauge. If that happens, then the same situation that has developed in SA would inevitably start to happen there: the more good infrastructure that exists or is created, the less economic any change would become.

I do, however like your analysis. Since the East African system is not very large (in total trackage and complexity) and is linked to no others - except at a very few break of gauge points - the chosen gauge becomes irrelevant. Inter-working is not a priority. As you so rightly say, the situation in SA is much different. The existing system in SA is extensive, generally in good condition, and links extensively to other nations right around Southern and Central Africa. Any change would have to be very carefully thought about. The impact would be greater and the economics (and inconveniences) of a new gauge, certainly for freight - passengers can unload and reload themselves at breaks of gauge - would be much less attractive.

Perhaps the biggest costs associated with changing gauge would not be in building new mainline routes, but in re-creating or re-equipping the secondary infrastructure that already exists: the marshalling yards, the harbour lines, the container deports, the workshops, the myriad private sidings, etc. And in acquiring new rolling stock - although that is starting to become a priority for TFR now anyway. All easy for a small self-contained passenger railway like Gautrain, but much more difficult and expensive for a massive integrated freight network such as TFR, intertwined with systems in Namibia, Swaziland, Botswana, Mocambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Angola, DRC, Tanzania, etc.

[John Ashworth]

CHINA & THE DURBAN HIGH-SPEED TRAIN

Posted on 21 September 2010
Railways Africa

“The largest construction company in China, China Railway Group, has announced it is in preliminary talks with the South African government to build the country’s first high-speed railway, linking the capital (sic) of Johannesburg and the eastern city of Durban, South Africa’s busiest harbour.

“China Railway has signed an agreement with Standard Bank Group, one of Africa’s biggest financial aids and 20% owned by the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, to finance the project, but talks are still being settled and no money is yet on the table. ‘Discussions are at an early stage and no financing is in place,’ China Railway Group chairman Li Changjin is quoted saying.

“Last April, the South African government conducted a study on the feasibility of high-speed trains to traverse the 352-mile distance between Johannesburg and Durban, which takes around five to seven hours by regular rail. Through the high-speed link, travellers could travel across the two cities in only three hours.”

[The distance is actually 721km, ie 451 miles, and the existing trains – when running – are scheduled to take just under 12 hours. - editor ]

“Previous reports stated that Morocco is the only country in Africa with a definite bullet transport in the pipeline. Set to launch by 2015, Morocco’s high-speed rail will link Casablanca to the port of Tangier City which is 750km away.”

[ Cook’s Overseas Timetable says 420km. – editor ]

“Many critics in South Africa believe the freight would be too expensive and not many travellers are interested to try the high-speed rail. Instead, they propose allocating budget for the improvement of their national railway transport system.

“Last June, the first phase of the Gautrain railway project, Africa’s first rapid rail link between Johannesburg’s airport and Pretoria, opened in time for the World Cup. After meeting great success in its initial trials, the Gautrain will be completed by 2011.”

[. The 160km/h project is not Africa’s first rapid rail link. Morocco runs scheduled intercity trains at 160km/h and in any event the 1984 Metroblitz express linked Johannesburg and Pretoria at this speed. – editor]