Railways
In 2000, South Africa had 20,384 km of rail transport, all of it narrow gauge. 20,070 km was 1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in) gauge (9,090 km of that electrified), with the remaining 314 km 610 mm (2 ft) gauge. The operation of the country's rail systems is accomplished by Transnet subsidiaries Spoornet, Shosholoza Meyl, Metrorail, Transwerk, Protekon et al.
A feasibility study is to be conducted into the construction of a 720 km of 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in) (standard gauge) line from Johannesburg to Durban for double-stack container trains.
On 2010-06-07 the Gautrain opened between Oliver R Tambo International Airport (ORTIA) and Sandton. This is the first stage of a standard gauge passenger line connecting Johannesburg, Pretoria and ORTIA.
Links exist to Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe. Railways linking Mozambique are under repair.
Read more about this topic: Transport In South Africa
Famous quotes containing the word railways:
“There is nothing in machinery, there is nothing in embankments and railways and iron bridges and engineering devices to oblige them to be ugly. Ugliness is the measure of imperfection.”
—H.G. (Herbert George)