RICHARDS BAY (miningweekly.com) – Transnet Freight Rail (TFR) would, by the middle of December, increase the number of 200-wagon Shongololo trains travelling daily between Richards Bay and the Mpumalanga coalfields from four to eight a day, TFR export coal line executive manager Selvan Soobramoney said on Wednesday.

The Shongololo project, launched in July, operated directly between the privately owned Richards Bay Coal Terminal (RBCT), in KwaZulu-Natal, and the coal mines of Mpumalanga, bypassing the Ermelo yard leg to reduce train-handling time.

The service reduced cycle times from an average of 58 hours to 41 hours for locomotives and from 63 hours to 48 hours for wagons, and introduced a new efficient use of technologies, including the concurrent use of wire distributed power and alternating current (ac)/direct current (dc) traction.

This project enabled TFR to increase its 580 km, bidirectionally signalled and fully electrified, coal export corridor’s yearly capacity to above 81-million tons, which would provide the needed capacity for coal from the Waterberg region.

During a media visit to the RBCT Soobramoney explained, however, that TFR was not currently making use of the full 81-million-ton capacity and was transporting about 75-million tons a year.

“We expect to reach the full 81-million-ton capacity by 2015 and for this to happen we have to rail 1.75-million tons a week,” he said.

TFR also planned to further increase the rail line’s capacity to 91-million tons a year, which was the capacity of RBCT, to allow new entrants into the market, Soobramoney stated, adding that yard improvements and power upgrades, such as the construction of more substations would still be needed for this target to be met. 

Other work that had also been identified included the construction of capital-intensive infrastructure to debottleneck capacity constraints, such as the Overvaal tunnel and that relating to Sikame and Ilangakazi grade separations.

Further, to achieve the desired ramp-up TFR would also have to standardise its wagons and locomotives.

“Currently TFR has 7 900 active wagons, of which 7 700 are jumbo, 80 t wagons, and 200 are small, 60 t wagons; however, we want to phase out the small wagons to have 7 900 jumbo wagons by 2014/15,” he said.

Similarly, TFR wanted to increase its number of 19E locomotives, which had the ability to run on both ac and dc tracks to 110 by 2014, up from the current 102.

Meanwhile, train efficiency and resource coordination and availability would also be investigated.

Soobramoney said to achieve improved operating consistency, TFR had to ensure that enough crew and locomotives were available at all times to ensure that the trains could stick to their schedules.

The yard count-down process also had to be improved to ensure that the trains left on time, he said, adding that the total cycle, from the moment a loaded train entered RBCT until it departed again, should only take seven hours and 20 minutes, of which four hours 18 minutes were used to offload the train. 

Meanwhile, TFR Empangeni Satellite Operations Centre senior manager Chris Knoetze said, should the miners be able to load their coal faster, the rail line capacity would also be increased.

He explained that the target time for a train to be loaded at a mine was four hours, however, the current average loading time was six hours, adding that junior miners in particular were not as fast as the majors.

Knoetze also said TFR was exploring the option of a separate terminal for junior miners that would give them a greater opportunity to export and make RBCT more productive.

Soobramoney said, according to TFR’s market demand strategy (MDS), the amount of coal exported was expected to remain steady at 81-million tons a year from 2014 to 2016, after which it was expected to increase to 84-million tons a year in 2016/17 and 95-million tons a year in 2017/18.

Meanwhile, with regard to domestic coal, TRF’s MDS expected the coal railed during 2014/15 to be 19.9-million tons, increasing to 24.9-million tons in 2015/16 and 36.3-million tons in 2016/17.

These volumes were expected to increase even further to 44.6-million tons a year in 2017/18 and 47.9-million tons a year in 2018/19.

Soobramoney noted that the bulk of this increase would stem from transporting coal on rail rather than road, which was in line with the company’s long-term strategy.

He added that to accommodate this increased volume TFR was currently in the process of constructing new rail lines to the Grootvlei, Tutuka, Camden and Majuba power stations.