Current Rail Freight

The overall volume of rail freight in the Eastern Cape has decreased dramatically in recent years. This is because of the loss of general freight and other long distance traffic. 

General break bulk and specialty cargo traffic has been lost to road because of the earlier railway administration’s desire to concentrate on moving “train load” traffic (block loads 10 to 40 wagons or more), to eliminate wagon-load traffic and to discourage the use of branch and secondary railway lines. At the same time, slow infrastructure degradation and equipment shortages brought about by under investment during the past 20 years has limited the railway’s ability to move traffic. It will not be easy to recover much of this traffic since many former rail users have changed their logistics systems and will not be easily persuaded to return to earlier systems. It will require a major marketing and service improvement effort on the part of railway administrators to coax traffic back to rail. Substantial reductions in current tariffs will also be necessary.