For Southern Africa’s heavy industries, the cost of unreliable rail is a risk to survival. Recent examples include a South African steel production company that has faced output losses, profit hits, and even shutdown threats due to freight disruptions, reduced rail operations and soaring logistics costs. At stake are jobs, investor confidence, and the region’s ability to move its commodities to market.
In the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region, where copper, gold, coal, iron ore and general freight (including agricultural products) are central to national economies, there is growing urgency for a rail network that can accommodate demand efficiently and connect markets across borders.
As one of Africa’s largest private freight rail operators, Traxtion has investments worth well over $180 million in Rolling Stock, Infrastructure and corridor operations to fill critical supply chain gaps. Its locomotive fleet, more than 60 strong haul hundreds of wagons of containerised freight, copper concentrate, sulphur, mining reagents, gold ore, and coal in and between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Zambia, Tanzania, Angola, Namibia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and South Africa.
“Rail is not just a transport solution but is foundational to the shaping of economies. Few sectors in SADEC offer the scale and potential impact of rail,” says Wes Kruger, Commercial Director at Traxtion. “When we unlock reliable rail corridors in Africa, we unlock new mining, manufacturing and agricultural activities, we keep the existing mines producing, factories staying open, and ports operating at their designed capacities. That is what industries need right now.”
Traxtion is ramping up volumes on the Tazara corridor between Dar es Salaam and the DRC and Zambian Copperbelts. By 2026, the company plans to have transported around one million tonnes of freight over a rail corridor of around 2000 kilometres. This has resulted in Traxtion helping stabilise copper shipments for upstream producers facing export bottlenecks, contributing to restoring continuity in a corridor once plagued by week-long delays. Furthermore, train operating crews now stay onboard across shifts, in sleeper cabooses, a change that shaves up to eight hours off each journey.
The company’s corridor-led model prioritises operational excellence and integration. By designing train schedules to meet the needs of miners, traders, and port operators (not just rail networks), Traxtion is reshaping how supply chains function. On routes in Senegal, Angola and Namibia, the focus is on export-import fluidity, enabling West Coast trade to flow in a more seamless manner within and across borders.
While the private sector cannot solve rail challenges alone, Traxtion is helping lead the way. The company is actively engaged with the Southern African Railways Association (SARA) and the African Rail Industry Association (ARIA) regional initiatives, and furthermore supports multilateral frameworks like the Luxembourg Rail Protocol to the Cape Town Convention to reduce the cost of Rolling Stock funding and de-risk rolling stock investment across borders.
“We are proving that corridor-scale rail can be fast, predictable, and commercially viable. Every locomotive we deploy generates upstream and downstream impact, providing economic development, exciting careers, trade flows, infrastructure fees to support infrastructure maintenance, and even benefiting the consumer economy,” adds Kruger.
That impact goes beyond economic theory. Traxtion’s network touches nine African countries, supporting local industries from steel to agriculture. Its train configurations move large volumes efficiently and safely, relieving pressure on the national road systems and enabling scale where road transport cannot compete.
Critically, the company has also played a catalytic role in South Africa’s third-party access programme, which is opening state-owned rail networks to private train operating companies. But Kruger cautions against thinking of reform as a silver bullet.
“The reform agenda is important and will attract much-needed investment into the infrastructure, locomotives and wagons, but what industry needs today is delivery. Our job is to move freight reliably and at scale. That is what makes rail relevant again.” If Traxtion’s model is adopted more widely, the so-called “poor cousin” of African transport may again become the backbone of regional growth. And for SADC’s trade-driven economies, that shift could not come at a more critical time.
“The future of trade in Africa depends on how well we can move our commodities and connect our regions. Rail is the only mode with the scale potential to meet that challenge,” concludes Kruger.
