TFR sets March 20 closing date for tender seeking OEMs to step in to rehabilitate idle locos

Transnet Freight Rail (TFR) has set a closing date of March 20 for responses to a tender inviting original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to step in to rehabilitate more than 160 Chinese-manufactured locomotives that are out of service, owing to the unavailability of critical spare parts. The unavailability of locomotives has affected operation on corridors used to export coal, magnetite, chrome and manganese, with the coal corridor having been particularly badly affected with the number of operational locomotives having slumped by 33%, between the 2017/18 and 2020/21 financial years, a collapse that TFR itself describes as “staggering”.