World Bank Document - Africa Infrastructure Knowledge Program

100 Africa’s Transport Infrastructure
Figure 3.5 Commodities Carried on Select Railways in Sub-Saharan Africa
percent
100
80
60
40
20
0
GRC
Camrail
Gabon
Sitarail
Transrail
CDE
URC
railway
TRC
CEAR
Zambia
CFM/CDN/CCFB
Madarail
timber cement fertilizer petroleum
ores and minerals agriculture general
Source: Bullock 2009.
Note: CDE = Chemin de Fer Djibouti-Ethiopien; CDN = Corredor de Desenvolvimento do Norte; CFM = Caminhos
de Ferro de Moçambique; GRC = Ghana Railway Company; URC = Uganda Railways Corporation. The data relate
to specific years or averages of years around 2001. As the proportions do not change much from year to year, the
broad picture shown is valid despite the fact that the data do not refer to the same year for each railway.
subsequent dispatch. Marketing channels for agricultural products are
now more diversified, and, as a result, the railways have steadily lost market
share. Abandoned rail-connected warehouses for export cash crops at
ports such as Dar es Salaam are testimony to these changes.
Inland distribution networks for consumer and intermediate products
have similarly changed. Although there are still inland depots for petroleum
products, direct deliveries from main depots and refineries to end
users are now more common, with small consignment sizes that are far
better suited to road transport. General freight, whether containerized
or not, is dispatched in relatively small consignments; mixed loads, with
freight from two or three suppliers to the same destination, are common.
Factor productivity is low (see appendix 3e). For traffic of this type, the
costs of pickup and delivery can also make rail transport prohibitively
expensive. In many cases, this small general freight and mixed-load traffic
was lost to roads and has not been recovered even as railways were
concessioned.
BR