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BOTSWANA COAL NEEDS ‘HEAVY GAUGE'

Railways Africa On January 31, 2012 In Botswana

Coal mined in Botswana will have to be moved to the coast – for export to India or China – on a new “heavy gauge” railway independent of South Africa, according to Professor Roman Greynberg, senior research fellow at the Botswana Institute of Development Policy Analysis. Writing in the Zimbabwe Independent, he explains:“Cecil Rhodes’ narrow gauge from [the] Cape to Bulawayo is no longer fit for the purpose”. Many in Botswana, he suggests, view South Africa’s proposed railway into Swaziland as “a power play,” undermining local initiatives. In any case, he points out, there is no way the Richard’s Bay Coal Terminal could handle Botswana’s planned 70-90 million tonnes of coal exports annually. Greynberg finds South Africa’s current performance in economic terms unimpressive, reminding readers that the ignoring of warnings given 1n 1998 resulted in the present electricity crisis. The railways, he adds, did nothing about bottlenecks in the past twenty years. The days when everything south of the Congo River depended on the South African Railways are coming to an end, he concludes.

In my view yet another jaundiced conclusion. The rail gauge is not the issue. Nor is the issue about whether SA builds a railway through Swaziland or not. They are red herrings. The biggest issue is port capacity, the difficulties, cost and environmental considerations inherent in either enlarging an existing port or building an new one. That only gets a secondary mention in the report. Greynberg appears to have jealousy streak; obviously biased against South Africa. But, then again if he is paid by Botswanans to be nice to Botswanans, I suppose he has to be.

But if Botswana has made the decision to move their coal to a new port which is not necessarily in South Africa and which doesn't use the existing South African rail network, then why not build the new railway line to Standard Gauge? What would be the advantage to them to build in Cape Gauge, and what would be the disadvantage of Standard Gauge?

Main disadvantages of choosing 1435 mm gauge would be:
- Inflexibility. Unable to send product to other ports, including even Richards Bay, Coega, Maputo, Dar es Salaam and Lobito, or to inland customers (within Botswana or within the SADC region) located on the 1065 mm network. No through running. Probably the biggest disadvantage.
- Duplication of assets. Unable to use or reuse any existing or surplus 1065 mm rolling stock (locos, wagons, etc). Needs own dedicated stock which could not be used on the 1065 mm network either.
- Possible duplication of trackage. Depending on the route chosen it may be necessary to parallel exsiting track with new 1435 mm track or reconstruct to dual gauge.
Possible advantages:
- Possible to have larger locos and wagons. Similar payload but with fewer wagons and shorter trains. Will this increase throughput however?
- Higher running speed. For heavy block trains this may not be practical though.

Another advantage is that is easier and probably cheaper to buy equipment "off the shelf", even secondhand, from anywhere in the world, as opposed to the more specialist narrow gauges.

The case for not duplicating existing equipment and track may make sense for a country such as South Africa which has a very extensive rail network. However for other African countries which have a very limited rail network which is already pretty much time-expired and needs totally replacing anyway, whether with narrow gauge or standard gauge (and I have no idea whether Botswana fits that description), there seems to be little point in replacing it with narrow gauge. Questions of inter-operability are only really relevant if they want to use South African routes, as there is already a mix of metre and Cape gauge across Africa, and some countries have both (eg Tanzania). Standard gauge is already being proposed for a number of new international lines, including the Kenya-South Sudan link and others, opening up the possibilities for future inter-operability.

For those who are new to the forum, this is a disagreement that Steve and I have at every opportunity!

Yes, the debate continues.

My primary reason for having this debate is that I believe that many governmental and parastatal authorities in Africa (including South Africa) are being "duped" by manufacturers and suppliers of railway equipment which they want to offload. John has provided the reason unwittingly: surplus equipment readily available at a good price. I believe that those suppliers use various nefarious ruses which frequently include running down the capabilities of narrower gauges. They throw out phrases like the one used in the report quoted above ('on a new “heavy gauge” railway') without providing a justified comparison with a well-constructed and well-run narrower gauge network.

The major routes on SA's rail network, especially the Orex and Colex lines, can be classed as 'heavy-haul' by any and all railway standards, yet they run on 1065 mm gauge.

The other white lie that keeps getting trotted out by those probably in the pockets of these same railway suppliers is 'high speed'. Gauteng's Gautrain is an example of that. What was actually built is a medium-speed commuter line (=< 160 km/h) which could easily have been run on 1065 mm. What we now have is a system which cannot be extended to through-run onto any of the existing network without building completely new infrastructure at great cost. Gautrain from Pretoria to Hatfield parallels the existing Metrorail tracks. It runs one train every 15 minutes (less at weekends)! What a waste. If the Gautrain gauge had been chosen as 1065 mm, those trains could easily have run onto the existing Metrorail tracks (would need dual-voltage train sets, yes). All that would have then been needed was an expansion of the existing station at Hatfield.

Did the UK choose a new gauge for the Heathrow Express or the Eurostar? No. They share the existing infrastructure - for Eurostar until recently and the H/Express still does out of Paddington.

True high speed (> 160 km/h) for much of Africa is a pipe dream. To build such railways would be far too expensive, often even for the first world. The distances are long, the terrain is tough. Besides freight like containers, coal and iron ore does not need such speeds.

The opponents of the Gautrain scheme were right. It is indeed a railway for the elite. This is partly because it can never be run on Metrorail tracks into any of the townships (traditionally the poorer areas). Because of an intentionally limiting gauge choice, those people are stuck with the people's railway, Metrorail. Not because of the narrower gauge Metrorail runs on, but because of the business model and philosophy it uses.

I do agree with John that for Sudan (for example), where the existing rail infrastructure is run down and isolated, including being the only cape gauge railway in a region of other gauges, a new gauge choice would be necessary and would not be as limiting. Abandoning the existing infrastructure would not be a problem. However, for practical purposes, Botswana is a fully operational, integral part of the Southern African railway system. Like Gautrain, a new gauge choice would be cause isolation and be unecessarily limiting.

Thanks, Steve. I think though that you are answering the question "why continuing with Cape gauge makes sense for South Africa". Everything you say does make sense for South Africa, at least in the short- to medium-term. But it doesn't necessarily make sense for the rest of Africa, as you concede. Where Botswana fits in is open to debate. According to that article it isn't satisfied with South Africa, so fitting in with South African rail infrastructure may not be its priority. Who knows where their new port might be? Namibia, Angola, Mozambique (via Zimbabwe) - all countries with limited rail infrastructure so the argument of fitting in with existing infrastructure carries little weight. Looking to the longer term, with so much of Africa's rail infrastructure now in need of total replacement, it may be that in 30 years time standard gauge will be the, er, standard in a transcontinental rail network, and Cape and metre gauges will be looked on as a quaint historical anomaly! The advantage of that, of course, is that we will be able to run our steam locos on it without interference from all those irritating freight trains!

While I agree that Gautrain is not high speed, I don't think "true" high speed rail in Africa is just a pipe dream. I believe that in Algeria and Morocco lines with speeds of 220 and 320 km/h respectively are already in the pipeline (Wikipedia), and Egypt has conducted preliminary feasibility studies.