State-owned Transnet Freight Rail (TFR) will be conducting its yearly maintenance shutdown on the Mineral Mining and Chrome (MMC) line from June 4 to 10.
The shutdown will allow TFR to undertake maintenance work that cannot take place during normal occupational conditions.
“The shutdown presents an opportunity for major infrastructure maintenance, network renewal and upgrade interventions to take place, in order to improve the network availability and reliability, to ensure the continued successful movement of trains along the MMC Phala Channel, [which significantly impacts on TFR],” the entity said on Wednesday.
The anticipated benefits of the shutdown include increased network reliability and availability, improved train transmit times, upliftment of temporary speed restrictions, reduced derailments and hook ups, as well as reduced signal failures and a reduction in radio network and transmission line failures.
TFR is working closely with its customers, contractors, colleagues from other operating divisions and the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa, to ensure the successful execution of the shutdown programme, it said.