Railways Africa

Railways & Harbours Conference & Exhibition is gearing up for its third event, which will take place at the Tshwane Events Centre in Pretoria from the 1 – 3 October 2013. Many of the major players in the industry are participating at the event. Transnet have just signed for 2000sqm, of space, where the company [...]

New uniforms for Transnet Freight Rail crews are being issued. The first recipients were ten members of the Coal Business Unit staff at Ermelo. Logistics Manager Sizwesamantshali Mtshali handed over the uniforms on 2 May to Operations Managers Christopher Mzimba, Sipho Scheepers and Muzi Zwane. The existing TFR train crew uniforms are to be phased [...]

Actom, the largest electrical engineering group in Southern Africa, and Alstom Grid, leading overseas provider of engineered solutions and products for smart and conventional power grids, signed a three-year transmission technologies cooperation agreement in Johannesburg on 23 April. Alstom Grid’s Commercial Vice-president for Southern Europe and Africa Eric Boulot explained: “Alstom and Actom are partners [...]

Peter Bagshawe reports: In the Transnet Freight Rail (TFR) auction that ended on 9 May, all rolling stock lots on offer were sold except for Lot 21 (a single SMLJ wagon at Midlandia, Noupoort – for which no bid was received). This particular wagon also failed to sell at the previous TFR auction which included [...]

According to Transnet Freight Rail (TFR) Executive Manager for International Business Nyameka Madikizela, it had been hoped to sign an important “North-South Corridor agreement” in February but talks were taking longer than expected. In terms of the intended arrangement, “millions of tons” of copper mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo (as well as Zambia) [...]

According to Rapport, a group of 66.000 pensioners has instituted a civil claim to recover about R79 billion they claim Transnet “plundered” from their pension funds. The claim was instituted in the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria. According to court papers, the “conspicuously illegal manner” in which the funds were stripped only emerged recently [...]

A R90 million contract to upgrade the signalling between Kamfersdam (on the main-line north of Kimberley) and Postmasburg, on the line to Sishen and Hotazel, was commenced in September 2011 and completed two months ahead of schedule in October 2012. The old block system, using copper cabling, had been in operation for close on 50 [...]

Peter Bagshawe reports: The latest Transnet Freight Rail auction lists 426 wagons in 24 lots. The largest is Lot 9 covering 97 wagons at Kimberley. Other large lots are at Sentrarand (Lot 1 – 58 wagons), Bloemfontein (Lot 12 – 40 wagons) and Lots 7 and 10 (37 wagons each at Port Elizabeth and Bellville [...]

From our San Francisco correspondent: “I discovered recently that the word cocopan is unknown in America, so I looked up the derivation, thinking it might have a British (coke) or French (coco) origin. To my surprise, the word is a South African creation whose origin is the Zulu word ngkubana, meaning a short truck. Evidently [...]