Moz takes ownership of new locos

The first consignment of locomotives for the Nacala Corridor railway line arrived in Mozambique earlier this month. The ten trains were imported by the Integrated Nacala Logistics Corridor (CLN), a consortium which is 80% owned by Brazilian mining giant Vale, and 20% by Mozambique’s publicly owned port and rail company, CFM. In total, CLN is importing 80 locomotives to operate along the 900-kilometre Moatize- Nacala line. “The General Electric Dash 9 series locomotives are each rated at 4 000 horsepower to enable them to pull wagons filled with coal from the mines in Moatize, in the western province of Tete, to the port of Nacala-a-Velha. The coal trains will be enormous, consisting of 120 wagons pulled by four locomotives. Each train will be 1.5 kilometres long,” said CLN chairman Alfredo Santana. The project – which comprises the railway line and the coal terminal at the port – is budgeted at US$4.4bn. CLN is investing more than US$85m in installing a communications network along the track to enable the safest and most efficient use of the track. Santana said the first coal exports would start in December this year and by 2015 the line should have the capacity to transport 11 million tonnes of cargo a year, increasing to 18m tonnes in 2017. The coal terminal at Nacala-a-Velha in northern Mozambique will have the capacity to store 1.45 million tonnes and export 18 million tonnes of coal a year. CAPTION A General Electric Dash 9 series locomotive