Transnet: on the brink of disaster?

[Steve Appleton]

From Natal Mercury, 29 September 2101:

• 29 Sep 2010
• The Mercury
• BRONWYN GERRETSEN
•
Transnet rail services ‘on the brink of disaster’

TRANSNET’S rail service is said to be teetering on the brink of disaster. Maintenance issues, capacity problems and general reliability are plunging the national rail company into a shambles. A tree grows in the middle of a railway line in Koffiefontein, in the Free State, above, while another track, also not maintained, runs through Marble Hall in Mpumalanga, right. The pictures were taken in the last few weeks.

Workers at Transnet workshops in Durban spoke to The Mercury on condition of anonymity. They were frustrated by lengthy periods without work because servicing of locomotives was being outsourced to areas 10 days away (in terms of time taken to load, transport and repair engines).

The workers were unsure why overhauling of locomotives was being done in Joburg when the work could be done at depots in KwaZulu-Natal – as had been done in the past. Sourcing of spare parts often took long periods. In one case, a locomotive was being driven with a cracked windscreen. “The poor driver can hardly see out of it,” an artisan said.

The acting CEO for the Passenger Rail Association of SA Tumisang Kgaboesela said only 12 out of Transnet’s 25 daily trains were running, ensuring that only major routes were covered. The association called for the temporary suspension of the service last month while it was being reviewed. Kgaboesela cited problems with the reliability of services. “A 12-hour journey could take 20 hours,” he said. This was attributed to derailments, repairs to railway lines, and maintenance and power issues.

Some companies in industries which used freight rail transport – including the cement, iron ore, manganese and automotive industries – also expressed concerns, but were unwilling to be named as they were still dependent on the service. A rail operations official at a prominent logistics company said it was only getting about 50 to 60 percent of its ideal number of loads transported due to problems with Transnet’s capacity. “It is definitely a major concern… It is operating with old rail stock (locomotives and wagons) at a number of our terminals and Transnet does not have the funds to invest in them.” The logistics official called for a public-private partnership or “wagon investment” to address problems.

Jannie de Villiers, executive director at the Chamber of Milling, said there had been talks to privatise rail on some smaller routes, but that these lines were in “a shocking condition”, if they even existed, after vandalism and theft. He also said that the chamber’s members were forced to pay 20 to 30 percent more to transport produce by road. “We may ask for two wagons and only get one. Then there may be no driver or no locomotive. And if the load is transported… only half arrives at its destination because the wagon door… is damaged.” These problems also contributed to rising food costs, said De Villiers. In the 1980s, 85 percent of all grain was transported by rail. At the moment, this figure stood at 26 percent. De Villiers said he feared South Africa would not be able to import produce in the event of severe drought because of the inadequate rail service.

A representative of a cement manufacturer said the industry spent about R4 billion a year on rail transport, meaning that Transnet’s problems impacted heavily on their businesses. The motor industry was also relying more on road transport than rail, owing to both cheaper cost and better service. A representative of a company which transports vehicles by rail said Transnet “have a major problem at the moment – there are derailments all the time, and there is very little maintenance on both the lines and the trains.”

A derailment last week of a train loaded with phosphate resulted in the complete collapse of the Brakspruit Bridge, about 50km from Phalaborwa. This would “significantly” affect operations at the Phalaborwa Mining Company, said its managing director, Anthony Lennox. Preliminary reports indicated that the bridge would be out of service for at least five weeks. Transnet says that some of its problems relating to damaged locomotives and overall capacity are due to vandalism and decades of infrastructure neglect, but it has denied experiencing maintenance or operational difficulties.

Transnet was responding to claims by its customers and employees that the rail service was collapsing because of maintenance, capacity and reliability problems. Spokesman Mboniso Sigonyela said Transnet Limited’s R94 billion capital investment programme over the next five years was intended to address capacity challenges, which had resulted from “decades of infrastructure neglect in the past”. Rail would account for just over 50 percent of the investment. In the past year, Transnet spent R9.7bn – excluding capitalisation of borrowing costs – on buying new locomotives for the general freight business, and coal and iron ore lines, he said.
“In addition, Transnet is implementing various programmes, including the Quantum Leap strategy, intended to address inefficiencies and improve performance. Although there is still room for improvement, we are beginning to see the impact of these initiatives.”

Sigonyela denied that maintenance intervals had been compromised, saying that locomotive service intervals were calculated from operations experience and technical improvements. He added that finding of parts and components was “not a major issue” as Transnet was “continually establishing new and renewing existing contracts with all major suppliers”. Transnet had also recently introduced new locomotive fleets as part of its upgrade programme. Spares contracts were in the process of being finalised, Sigonyela said. “We have a strict policy of managing our assets and there are processes in place to manage locomotive staging, scrapping and usage of components. It is incorrect to claim that we have changed service intervals.”

Sigonyela also denied that locomotive overhauling was outsourced, saying that all work was done at Transnet Rail Engineering and there were 19 locomotive maintenance depots countrywide. “These depots are dedicated to running (short-term) maintenance. For heavy maintenance, such as wreck repairs and major maintenance, there are three dedicated factories in Durban, Pretoria and Bloemfontein.”

Although he could not comment specifically on a case in which a train was operating with a cracked windscreen – according to Transnet employees because of a delay in finding a replacement – Sigonyela said vandalism was “quite rife in areas in which we operate”. “Ordinarily, a loco with a broken windscreen would not be in operation until it is replaced. We are not experiencing any shortage of windscreens at the moment.”

Although Sigonyela said no part of Transnet’s rail network would be privatised, the company was in the process of engaging the private sector on an expression-of-interest basis “as concessionaires on our rail branch lines network, while we retain ownership”.
“Transnet has a well-defined funding strategy in place, which is being implemented on the strength of its balance sheet and without any guarantees from the government.”