Railroad to North disintegrating

THE railway line between Kranzberg near Karibib and Tsumeb in the North is in such poor shape that there is a high risk of trains getting derailed, TransNamib’s acting Chief Executive Officer Mike Kavekotora has said.

Passenger services to the North have already been discontinued and freight trains are running below full capacity. Kavekotora said the increasing freight demand from Angola through Walvis Bay could also not be satisfied unless this railway was repaired. Without this section of rail, he said, the Northern Railway Project connecting Namibia to Angola would be ‘a white elephant’. He estimated the cost of repairing the line at about N$39 million. About one million tonnes of freight is transported by rail to the North every year. Kavekotora was speaking at the commissioning of the first five locomotives from the company’s refurbishment programme.Forty-five locomotives are to be restored at a cost of around N$225 million.The first phase included five locomotives while phase two and three of the programme will refurbish 18 and 22 lococomotives respectively.Transnet in South Africa has lent TransNamib two locomotives while the repairs are continuing. The company eventually intends to buy the loaned locomotives at a cost of around N$11,5 million, Kavekotora said. With the refurbishment, the company hopes to grab back the market share it has lost to haulage companies due to a long-running lack of capacity. ‘It is no longer necessary to allow new road haulers to come and deplete our road infrastructure with the excuse that TransNamib … does not have the capacity,’ Kavekotora said. Deputy Minister of Works and Transport Paul Smit, speaking at the commissioning, said Namibia would need around N$8 to N$10 billion to address its transport needs over the next few years. To this end, he said his Ministry is developing a ‘transport master plan’ that includes upgrades to road, rail, air and sea infrastructure.