Major derailment closes Richards Bay railway

Terry Hutson
According to 'unofficial' reports Spoornet has suffered yet another major train derailment along the strategic coal line between Mpumalanga and Richards Bay.
Although no official statement appears to have been issued by Spoornet, the accident took place during the recent long weekend and involved a total of 147 rail wagons that came off the tracks. This left coal spilled to height exceeding that of two trains packed on top of each other and extended along an area estimated at more than half a kilometre in length.
The derailment and subsequent cleanup operations have meant that no cargo including coal has been able to move along the Richards Bay line for more than a week.
With such accidents occurring on a regular basis (another derailment early last year has been blamed for RBCT not achieving its targeted export volume by several million tonnes), a number of concerned users are questioning the state of maintenance for the line. The area in which these accidents occur are often extremely remote, hence little or no news of such incidents gets out immediately. Port and rail users, and the media, would also like to know why there is seldom a pro-active official statement about such accidents.