{"id":91296,"date":"2026-06-02T11:16:31","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T11:16:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/?p=91296"},"modified":"2026-06-02T11:26:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T11:26:19","slug":"sas-80m-tonne-rail-freight-gap-on-the-rails-to-recovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/2026\/06\/02\/sas-80m-tonne-rail-freight-gap-on-the-rails-to-recovery\/","title":{"rendered":"SA&#8217;s 80m-tonne rail freight gap: on the rails to recovery?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Transnet is reporting a turnaround. Volumes are up; the language in its 2025 annual report has shifted from crisis management to &#8220;decisive turning point&#8221;. But the Draft National Rail Master Plan sets a 2030 target of&nbsp;<strong>250-million tonnes<\/strong>. Transnet is currently moving&nbsp;<strong>168-million tonnes<\/strong>&nbsp;a year. That leaves roughly 80-million tonnes that travels by truck instead of train \u2014 and truck freight in South Africa is expensive and steadily destroying the roads it runs on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rail freight peaked at 226.6-million tonnes in the 2015 financial year, according to Transnet&#8217;s annual reports. Then came a six-year slide, the result of deferred maintenance, equipment failure, vandalism and reduced infrastructure investment. By 2023, Transnet was carrying 149.5-million tonnes, a level not seen since the early 2010s. Recovery has begun since that low, but on a chart it reads as a small upward tick at the bottom of a cliff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"633\" height=\"411\" src=\"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/transnetRecovery-5.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-91305\" srcset=\"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/transnetRecovery-5.png 633w, https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/transnetRecovery-5-400x260.png 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 633px) 100vw, 633px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/theoutlier.co.za\/features\/road-vs-rail\">Read the full feature<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":91310,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[709,5,1454],"tags":[1462,632,498],"newsletter-post":[],"site":[],"class_list":["post-91296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-economy","category-feature","tag-roal","tag-transnet","tag-transport"],"acf":{"post_style":"bc","show_on_front":"Yes","link_through":"Yes","big_number":"","big_number_caption":"","big_number_link":"","big_number_background":"","big_number_text_colour":"#000000","big_number_icon":false,"big_number_wide":"yes","featured_chart":false,"flourish_chart_id":"","flourish_sub_title":"","flourish_chart_width":"medium","is_newsletter_post":"No","chart_url":"","background_colour":"#0089AA","text_colour":"#FFFFFF"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91296"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91306,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91296\/revisions\/91306"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91296"},{"taxonomy":"newsletter-post","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newsletter-post?post=91296"},{"taxonomy":"site","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/site?post=91296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}