JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – State-owned rail utility Transnet Freight Rail (TFR) on Monday said it would shut its coal-export line for 12 days, from May 14 to 25, to catch up on its maintenance backlog.
The South African rail operator said in a statement that the lower activity in May presented an opportunity to replace old and problematic infrastructure, while also accelerating the bigger capital expansion/upgrade projects in line with the expected volume growth, as required by its market demand strategy.
Transnet stated that there were some sections on the coal line where infrastructure work could not be carried out without stopping the entire train service. This was the case at Overvaal, the single-line portion of the line where critical maintenance and refurbishment work was required.
Further, the shutdown was expected to serve as a boost to TFR’s infrastructure construction programme, which recently got under way and would see its rail capacity expanded to 81-million tons a year.
In the 2012/13 financial year, TFR railed a record 69.2-million tons of export coal on the line.