SOUTH Africa’s freight rail reform has moved past the stage of being dismissed as another policy aspiration without a timetable. The Transnet Rail Infrastructure Manager (TRIM) now exists, with its own CEO, Moshe Motlohi, and full executive team. A Network Statement has been published, access tariffs gazetted, private train operators selected, and access agreements signed.
The question now is whether the framework is commercially robust enough to make a slot on Transnet’s network an investable asset rather than a permission slip to take on risks operators don’t control.
TRIM sits between the state-owned network and the operators using it, including Transnet Freight Rail (TFR) itself, allocating capacity, setting tariffs, and enforcing access agreements. It’s the first real attempt to turn Transnet’s freight network from a closed system into an open-access platform where TFR remains dominant but no longer exclusive.
But TRIM isn’t yet a separate legal entity. It remains an operating division within Transnet SOC Limited, says Ian Bird, transport and logistics lead at Business for South Africa (B4SA). The eventual goal, as with Transnet National Ports Authority, is a stand-alone entity under the Department of Transport. That can’t happen yet because TRIM isn’t financially viable on its own. The network is too damaged to recover full costs without pricing rail out of the market against road.
That shortfall means TRIM is trying to do three things at once: act as impartial infrastructure manager; fund rehabilitation of a degraded network; and build a bankable access regime for new entrants. If new entrants can be sufficiently encourage, it will help lift freight volumes from roughly 170 million tons towards a 250Mt target by 2030, Transnet contends.
In theory those goals reinforce each other. But in practice, they collide over contract risk.
Eleven private train operators have been allocated slots alongside TFR, all under the same Rail Access Agreement and tariff sheet. But TFR still holds around 180Mt of capacity against roughly 22-24Mt taken up by new entrants from some 30Mt released.
This is addition around an incumbent, not displacement. Says Bird: “The bankability of the current version of the Network Statement and the rail access agreements, by any measure, has not been sufficient.”
TRIM far from perfect
James Holley, CEO of Traxtion, one of Africa’s largest private freight rail firms which sat out the first round of the rail allocations by TRIM, says the allocations must be “fully bankable,” with service-level guarantees, reciprocal penalties, and clear lender rights. On the evidence of the reform so far, however, these goal looks hard to achieve.
Financiers can’t easily take security over a rail slot or rely on lender step-in rights, while operators may still owe access charges even when the network is unusable. TRIM is also operationally asymmetric: if a derailment or maintenance failure blocks a corridor, the operator — not TRIM — may face customer penalties with no recourse.
It’s also commercially inflexible because payment obligations don’t flex adequately for outages or force majeure, a burden a large incumbent can absorb but a single-slot new entrant may not survive.
Finally, TRIM is financially punitive. Slots run up to ten years while markets, commodity cycles or mine operations can shift entirely underneath them. The reform is also misaligned with global norms because operators are responsible for reliability to cargo owners without enforceable assurance that TRIM’s network will be fit for purpose.
We’re on the cusp of a really exciting opportunity to unlock a national bottleneck to economic growth. It’s just going slower than we had hoped – Ian Bird, B4SA
Bird estimates the network is running at only 65-70% of nameplate capacity across relevant subsystems, combining track, signalling, electrification, rolling stock and security constraints.
It is hoped that the next Network Statement – already six months late – will address some or all of these shortcomings.
One key change that will be required is allowing cargo owners themselves, not just train operating companies, to apply for slots and then contract an operator. “If you’re Thungela or one of the mining companies, you should actually apply as the cargo owner for the slot,” Bird says. This will shift balance-sheet risk toward parties better able to carry it.
Maintenance remains the other open question. Bird says coal exporters via Richards Bay Coal Terminal and iron-ore users are willing to co-fund identified maintenance packages, alongside government’s Budget Facility for Infrastructure, the World Bank, and private-sector participation. The constraint may be less about money than sequencing and delivery.
TRIM exists, tariffs are equalised between TFR and private operators, and the network has been formally opened. That’s real change after decades of rail access being a Transnet possession rather than a national platform. But the reform will be judged on trains run, tons moved, capital committed and corridors restored – not slots allocated.
“We’re on the cusp of a really exciting opportunity to unlock a national bottleneck to economic growth,” Bird says. “It’s just going slower than we had hoped… we’re trying to do this in less than 10 years, but we just have no time.”
Urgent, real, structurally necessary — and not yet bankable enough to deliver what South Africa needs.
This is a shortened version of an article that was published in The Mining Yearbook 2026.
