Upington hub invites Spoornet on board

Negotiations with air and road on track
ALAN PEAT
THE SKELETON of the multi-modal hub growing up around the international airport at Upington in the Northern Cape is putting on flesh, according to Wayne Bateman, CEO of the Northern Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry (NOCCI) – a major force behind the Section 21 (non-profit) development company. “We are creating a multi-modal corridor network linking Upington with Walvis Bay and Luderitz in Namibia, and Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, East London, Durban and Gauteng on the domestic front,” he told FTW. The development team is currently talking to Spoornet about an unused railway depot in Upington – a facility with room for about 1 500 TEUs, and the stacks handled by an overhead crane. “We are also negotiating with Spoornet – for them to supply the rail links in our multi-modal network,” Bateman said. “§Discussions are also under way with MacDonald’s Transport – the largest road transporter in the Northern Cape – for the road links on all the corridors.” In terms of the airport, which supplies the airfreight core of the system, a seven-man team has just returned from a visit to Europe to discuss a freighter operation with the cargo carriers, Cargolux of Luxembourg and Lufthansa Cargo of Germany. “The airlines are busy