Transnet Freight Rail embarked on a seven-day shutdown in the Mineral Mining and Chrome (MMC) area of operation from June 5 to 11.

This year’s affected areas included Witbank, Nelspruit, Koedoespoort, Swaziland, Maputo, Empangeni and other lines tapping into Transnet Port Terminals and Transnet Engineering.

The State rail enterprise will be extending its maintenance regime to the Polokwane and Isando depots.

The shutdowns have traditionally involved the Phalaborwa to Kaapmuiden, Komatipoort to Nsezi, Swaziland and the Maputo lines.

The shutdown, scheduled yearly, presents an opportunity to address maintenance backlogs and to replace obsolete, problematic infrastructure and upgrade projects in line with the expected volume growth and is also a requirement for the company’s Market Demand Strategy to succeed, spokesperson Mike Asefovitz said last week

While maintenance was planned on the sections for the seven days, Tippler 1 maintenance required 11 days and ran from June 4 to 13.

As these sections are operationally critical, it is seen as crucial that shutdown opportunities are used to perform major maintenance work and accelerate line refurbishment, as well as for upgrade or expansion work, especially considering the fact that there are limited opportunities to perform work in these areas outside of the shutdown period.

In this way, these critical sections of the line can be in a better condition all the time, as the risk of failure would be significantly minimised.

MMC shutdown is aimed at reducing the risk of derailments and other chronic failures.

Specific activities carried out during the shutdown period include 36 km of rail replacement, 10 466 sleeper replacements, five sets replacement, 1 870 m of formation repairs, 33 culvert installations, 13.7 km of ballast screening, 154 km of ballast tamping, Tippler 1 maintenance and the Mafube road-over-rail bridge construction.

“We’ll be lifting 21 temporary speed restrictions due to the work that will be executed during the shutdown,” Asefovitz added.

Transnet Freight Rail works closely with its customers to plan for the execution of the shutdown programme, so that all parties realise the long-term benefits that go with it.

The State rail enterprise regards both the satisfaction of customer needs and the running of a safe and cost-effective railway business as its top priority.

“Reliable infrastructure which is proactively well maintained is key,” it said in a release to Creamer Media’s Mining Weekly.