World Bank Document - Africa Infrastructure Knowledge Program

Railways: Not Pulling Their Weight 87
traffic can continue by road. For example, in Benin the Organisation
Commune Benin-Niger des Chemins de Fer et des Transports (OCBN)
provides a link from Cotonou to Niamey through a railhead at Parakou;
Camrail provides railheads for traffic between the port of Douala in
Cameroon and the Central African Republic and Chad; and in East Africa,
Tanzania Railways Corporation (TRC) carries traffic for Burundi and eastern
Democratic Republic of Congo, and Kenya Railways Corporation
(KRC) for Rwanda.
Over 50 companies operate in Africa. Many are small, although a single
company, South Africa’s Transnet Freight Rail, has about 40 percent of the
operating network and carries 70 percent of the traffic. South Africa also
dominates the rail passenger business. Mine-connected rail lines in both
West and southern Africa constitute only 4 percent of the network but
carry over half the freight (as measured by net tonne-km [ntkm]), most of
which is carried on the Transnet Freight Rail coal and ore export lines.
There are other mineral lines in Gabon, Guinea, Mauritania, and Nigeria,
some of which also carry general traffic to and from mines.
Traffic Volume: Unprofitably Low
Traffic volumes on the region’s railways are generally low by world standards.
South Africa’s rail system averages around 5 million traffic units
(TUs) per route-km overall 3 —this figure is only 2.4 million when specialized
coal and ore lines are excluded. The network with the next highest
average is that of Gabon, with 2.7 million TUs per route-km.
Cameroon’s Camrail (1.1 million) is the only other railway with an average
density of over 1 million TUs per route-km (see appendix 3b). Many
railways average under 300,000. Even in South Africa, only 50 percent
of the networks carry more than 2 million net tonnes per year. With such
low traffic volumes, many networks in Africa struggle to maintain and
renew their infrastructure.
Infrastructure Condition: Impeding Rail’s Competitive Potential
Most networks in Africa, outside of South Africa, still operate at the standards
to which they were constructed. They are small-scale, undercapitalized
networks designed for relatively low axle loads and low speeds,
ill-suited to modern requirements.
The rail track itself is often too light for even the moderate axle loads
currently being operated. When the Dakar-Senegal railway was concessioned,
the average age of track was reported as 37 years in Senegal and
51 years in Mali. Most track is even older. In addition, the strength of rail