Several regional rail projects will be showcased to potential investors and suppliers at the upcoming Southern African Railways Association (Sara) conference and exhibition, which will take place in Gauteng from May 27 to 29.

Swaziland Railway CEO Stephen Ngubane, who is the chairperson of the conference to be held at Gallagher Estate in Midrand, confirmed that the multibillion-rand proposed “missing link” between Swaziland and South Africa would be one of the projects presented.

Speaking at a pre-conference briefing in Johannesburg, Ngubane said studies into the 146 km cross-border connection from Lothair, in Mpumalanga, to Sidvokodvo, in Swaziland, were advancing and that there could be physical progress during 2015.

The project had been designed to free up capacity on South Africa’s coal corridor to the Port of Richards Bay, in KwaZulu-Natal. But it should also improve general freight interoperability between Transnet Freight Rail (TFR) and Swaziland Railways. The landlocked kingdom’s only current connection with South Africa’s economic heartland of Gauteng is through a 370 km road network.

TFR’s Cleopatra Shiceka revealed that the Mozambican dimension of the project would also be presented, along with several other projects identified as having potential to improve rail and trade integration across the territory.

Sara executive director Bernard Dzawanda noted that the region’s existing railways network was typically developed on a pit-to-port basis to facilitate the export of commodities. However, the focus currently was on developing new links, or augmenting existing infrastructure, to more fully integrate rail with domestic and regional economic activity.

The projects identified for Southern Africa fell under the African Union’s Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa, which also included water, energy, information and communications technology and other transport projects.

Shiceka said that, besides the infrastructure projects, railways operators would also use the Sara event to canvass the concept of collective sourcing with suppliers of locomotives and wagons. The idea was to use that improved buying power to create an environment conducive for higher levels of localisation and to spur rail industry hubs across the region.

The conference, which would be attended by customers, operators, suppliers, investors, government Ministers and officials and regulators, would also explore ways of revitalising rail transport more generally and to strategise ways for recapturing market share lost to road.

Rail’s market share fell from over 80% of freight volumes in the 1980s to less than 15% currently. But the Southern African Development Community had endorsed proposals to expand rail’s future role in the movement of good and people, including through the creation of rail funds to spur the development and maintenance of rail infrastructure.

Sara president Dominic Ntwaagae, who is also CEO of Botswana Railways, said the 2014 conference would be convened under the theme ‘Sustainable Railway Infrastructure Development for Regional Economic Growth’ and would seek to build on momentum that had been generated since the inaugural yearly conference, which took place in 2010.