Photo by: Duane Daws
State-owned utility Transnet Freight Rail (TFR) has confirmed that it will embark on a ten-day shutdown of the coal export line from May 12 to 21 and that no coal or general-freight trains will be operational on the corridor for the duration of the shutdown.
The annual shutdown is designed to enable the company to address maintenance backlogs, replace obsolete and problematic infrastructure and accelerate the major capital expansion projects in line with expected volume growth.
TFR said in a statement that it was working closely with its customers in the planning and execution of the complete shutdown.
The Transnet group was yet to release figures for the full year, but during the six months to the end of September, it reported that export coal volumes rose 4.3% to 43.7-million tons and that it expected to rail 74.2-million tons for the year as a whole.