SA’s 80m-tonne rail freight gap: on the rails to recovery?

Rail freight in South Africa is recovering, slowly. We still have a long way to go. In the meantime, the country still moves most of its freight by road, which is more expensive and steadily destroying the road network.

The government has committed to an annual target of 250-million tonnes transported by rail by 2030. In the 2025/26 year, 168 million tonnes were transported. That leaves a gap of nearly 80-million tonnes. And for now, if the freight isn’t on a train, it’s on a truck.

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