E Africa rail link set to challenge seafreight

THE NEW mindset amongst the railway companies in Southern Africa is: Cooperate to compete, according to Colin Roberts, the Spoornet project manager for interline systems.
The markets in Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya have been identified by all of us as important areas to be served by rail corridors - for exporters and importers in East Africa, he told FTW.
Actually putting this corridor concept onto the rails sees Spoornet being joined by the railways in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Tanzania. The first service to be provided as a complete end-to-end rail corridor will run between Dar es Salaam (the southern Tanzanian seaport) and SA - routing through these three neighbouring countries.
The five railways on this route run on the same rail gauge, said Roberts, and already operate connecting and through services for freight - and some passenger services.
Extensions to this initial service will involve two routes and four other East African railways. To the west - the TransAfrica Rail Corporation (TARC) and Uganda Railways lake services to Kampala. To the east - Tanzania Railways Corporation and Kenya Railways to Nairobi.
Freight in containers can be transhipped in Tanzania where the two rail networks inter-connect, with a new transhipment facility being built by TARC at Kidatu, 300 kilometres west of Dar es Salaam.
For freight between the inland areas of South Africa and the Tanzania/ Uganda/ Kenya bloc, Roberts said, rail corridors eliminate the use of sea-ports, also removing the congestion and cost problems which seafreight shippers may experience with the ports.
The use of rail also keeps handling between different transport modes to a minimum.
Roberts also feels that the rail corridors will supply other benefits to the shippers in and into East Africa.
We believe that when the railways cooperate to create a land bridge of this kind, he said, they can compete on one-stop service, transit times, predictability, security and total value for the shipper.
We're aiming to show that the initial Dar Es Salaam service can satisfy all these customer targets. The success of that will position us well to open up the enormous potential of the extended rail corridors.
Botswana Railways, National Railways of Zimbabwe, Zambia Railways, Spoornet and TAZARA have been busy working out detailed operating, marketing and business plans for the initial corridor and are planning to start operations in August.
The extended corridors are expected to come into operation in October, said Roberts.
Tyronne Prinsloo, Spoornet business manager, is the initial contact person for enquiries. Tel: (011) 773-9613.