R12m in road costs LEONARD NEILL ESKOM IS planning a heavy-duty coal truck railway line which will save SA National Roads Agency R12-million a year in repairs and maintenance of roads leading from mines to power stations in Mpumalanga. Coal is currently carried by road along a 100km stretch of the N11 between Ermelo and Majuba Power Station. The trucks carrying the product make up between 10% and 15% of the 4 000 vehicles that use this route connecting Mpumalanga and KwaZulu Natal, on a daily basis. Now the electricity giant is to spend R1,5-billion on the rail project. “We are working with Spoornet on it, with a scheduled finish sometime in 2008,” says Ehud Matya, managing director of Eskom’s generation division. The announcement has been hailed as a major step in helping road maintenance, by project engineer Nuno Gomes. “It will slash costs drastically. The trucks on the motorway create potholes and uneven surfaces. We are constantly working on it,” he says.
