South Africa's historic freight and passenger rail growth compared to its GDP growth (1911 to 2023)
Research note – 28 January 2025

Research by GAIN Group
Jan Havenga, Zane Simpson, Anneke de Bod, Stefaan Swarts, Henk Neethling, John Paul Kulumba, Werner van Greuning

According to the National Freight Demand Model (FDM™) for South Africa, which was updated for the 2022 base year during 2024, the South African economy had a 790 million tonnes (mt) freight demand in 2022. According to the long-term forecast included in the FDM™ 2022, this situation is expected to persist in the foreseeable future and reach 1 020 mt by 2053 (see Figure 1).

 

 

Figure 1: FDM™ current (left) and long-term future (right) GFB and dedicated export line freight flows in South Africa,

which are indicated by red and blue lines respectively

 

The high level of freight demand together with the country’s spatial challenge means it is extremely reliant on the efficiency of its freight logistics system, which has been failing for several years. The failure of South Africa’s freight logistics system is particularly noticeable when comparing its economic and rail growth after the Union of South Africa (i.e. the unification of the Cape, Natal, Orange River, and Transvaal colonies) in 1910. Thereby, all the railways of the separate colonies were added together through the Union of South Africa - South Africa Act (1909), creating the railway as we know it.

Figure 2 provides a historical comparison of the growth in South Africa’s economy (measured in gross domestic product, i.e. GDP constant prices), freight rail (measured in tonne-kilometres) and passenger rail (measured in passenger journeys) between 1911 and 2023. 

 

 

Figure 2: Growth in GDP constant prices in comparison to freight and passenger rail growth since South Africa's unification [index year, 1911 = 1]

Source: GDP constant prices data from FDM™, Statistics SA and the World Bank; freight rail tonne-kilometre data from FDM™ and Spoornet; and passenger rail journey data from CEIC, Internation Union of Railways (UIC Railisa Database) & OECD Statistics, Knoema, Prasa, Statista, and various historical reports of the South African Railways and Harbours

 

Both bulk export lines, i.e. dedicated “conveyor belt” type rail lines with dedicated sidings and dedicated loading-offloading equipment started to operate in 1976. Most export coal uses the coal line between Ermelo and Richards Bay, while export iron ore uses the iron ore line between Sishen and Saldanha. This marked a significant change in South Africa’s overall freight rail system (see Figure 3) and created a perfect storm with the deregulation of road freight transport being mooted as a definite future event by various studies and lobbies. This deregulation happened in 1989 through the Transport Deregulation Act 80 of 1988 (Republic of South Africa, 1988).

 

 

Figure 3: Growth in GDP constant prices in comparison to total –, export coal and iron ore – and GFB freight

and passenger rail growth since South Africa's unification [index year, 1976 = 1]

Source: GDP constant prices data from FDM™, Statistics SA and the World Bank; freight rail tonne-kilometre data from FDM™ and Spoornet; and passenger rail journey data from CEIC, Internation Union of Railways (UIC Railisa Database) & OECD Statistics, Knoema, Prasa, Statista, and various historical reports of the South African Railways and Harbours

 

To prepare for deregulation, South Africa’s freight railway system required investment in the general freight business (GFB) railway (i.e. non-bulk export line rail freight) and renewal, which did not happen because the bulk export lines ‘masked’ the problem. Similarly, a Road Transport Quality System (RTQS), i.e. a framework of legal and administrative measures to maintain and enhance safety in road transport and to allow new policies to be implemented, was required but never developed and implemented.

While the country’s focus on its bulk export lines was a key contributor to the collapse of the freight railway system, Figure 4 indicates that the collapse began earlier (and is, therefore, more complicated) than that.

 

 

Figure 4: Comparison between South Africa's historic rail line volumes captured in the FDM™ and World Bank GDP data

Source: Aritua, Havenga, Simpson, Swarts, Neethling & de Bod (n.d.)

 

As seen earlier in Figure 3, GFB rail and passenger rail have shown a similar growth decline since deregulation. Figure 5 shows actual passenger rail journeys between 1910 and 2023, along with Prasa’s planned passenger rail journeys up to 2030.

 

 

Figure 5: Historic (i.e. actual) and future (i.e. planned) passenger rail growth since South Africa's unification

Source: Passenger journey data from CEIC, Internation Union of Railways (UIC Railisa Database) & OECD Statistics,

Knoema, Prasa, Statista, and various historical reports of the South African Railways and Harbours

 

While ore rail freight throughput is holding up reasonably well, it is constrained due to the inability to expand capacity to service growing demand and has resulted in road freight having a significant increase in moving export minerals such as coal to the ports for export (see the growth in South Africa’s total coal exports by trucks between 2019 and 2023 in Figure 6).

 Fig 6

 

Figure 6: Coal volumes by trucks between 2019 and 2023 captured in the FDM™

 

Coal exports by rail have declined due to locomotive availability problems and rampant theft and vandalism. As international coal prices rose, more trucks appeared to substitute the unavailable rail freight capacity (see Figure 7). 

 Fig 7

 

Figure 7: The modal split for the coal volumes between 2019 and 2023 captured in the FDM™ compared to international coal prices in dollars

 

The current freight railway network should carry 262 mt. Without the short lines, 247 mt should have been transported by rail in 2022. The shortfall is 100 mt. Finding the additional 100 million freight rail tonnes to achieve the near 250 mt total is a difficult task, which would involve the recovery of approximately:

  • 25 mt of export coal through the Port of Richards Bay
  • 10 mt of export iron ore between Postmasburg and the Port of Saldanha
  • 20 mt palletised general freight (mainly processed foods, beverages, clothing and some other FMCG products) on NatCor (Johannesburg – Durban)
  • 10 mt palletised general freight (mainly processed foods, beverages, clothing and some other FMCG products) on CapeCor (Johannesburg – Cape Town)
  • 25 mt freight on other corridors
    • 5 mt of manganese added to the Sishen Saldanha (i.e. export iron ore) line
    • 5 mt of manganese from Postmasburg via Kimberley to De Aar to Noupoort to the Port of Gqeberha
    • 5 mt general freight between Waterberg – Pyramid (Pretoria)
    • 5 mt general (primarily chrome) freight between Beitbridge – Pyramid (Pretoria)
    • 10 mt general (primarily coal, chrome and automotive) freight on the Maputo corridor

The required recovery of rail freight tonnes in South Africa is mapped in Figure 8.

 Fig 8

 

Figure 8: Map showing the million rail freight tonnes that must be recovered, along with the prominent locations involved,

to achieve the near 250 million total rail tonnes target for South Africa

 

Reference list