D&M Rail laying tracks for development

Done through innovation
Catherine Sasman
D&M Rail Construction reiterated that its joint venture contract with TransNamib for the rehabilitation and upgrade of the Kranzberg to Tsumeb line is not open ended, and will be terminated once the project is completed.
The timeline of the contract, however, is defined by the availability of funding, and with cuts in government spending the uncertainty about funding has compounded the issue.
Dawie Moller, managing director of D&M Rail, said the company would only get an indication of the available budget by March next year while there was not much available in the 2016/17 financial year.
The contract can similarly be nullified if substandard work is done.
The company made these remarks during a site tour on Friday where the media were introduced to the labour-intensive, gruelling work being done along the railway line.
Work on the line starts at first daylight when mostly young Namibians, male and female, alongside experienced hands, lift and heave, in teams on the line, multiple tons of concrete and steel - in searing hot and choking dusty conditions.

Tackling faults
D&M Rail, which is the only wholly Namibian-owned railway construction and maintenance company, was first commissioned by the Ministry of Works and Transport on 17 December 2012 to execute emergency repairs over a four-month period after a series of derailments due to track defects.
The company said the situation subsequently stabilised with no further track-related derailments since these interventions, but due to limited funds, work on the project had to be stopped completely that year.
It was subsequently contracted to rehabilitate the 392-kilometre Kranzberg to Tsumeb line to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) standard of 18.5 ton axle load.
It entered into a joint venture arrangement on this project with TransNamib in 2014 through the formation of the Namibia Rail Construction company. To date, 13.2 kilometres of rail along the Kranzberg to Tsumeb line has been fully rehabilitated, 114.1 kilometres have been partially upgraded and 183.4 kilometres have been rehabilitated as a temporary
solution.
Work on the line is executed only during five-hour track occupation in between train traffic that continues.
Along the way tracks not under rehabilitation or upgrading are kept operationally safe at all hours.
On this project, Namibia Rail Construction has introduced pioneering innovations alongside subcontracting small and medium enterprises. A first in the industry is the 30kg rails that have been reworked and converted to hundreds of kilometres of continuous welded rail (CWR), which is executed by Morris Ndjaba’s Moka Engineering SME which does the surface and exothermic welding on the lines.

Capacity picking up
Similarly, for the first time ever in the world 30kg rails were fitted to P2 concrete sleepers.
The safety of the railway line has drastically been improved as is evidenced by dramatically reduced speed restrictions, which opens the opportunity for a reintroduction of tourist trains.
Acid transportation on rail from the Dundee Precious Metal smelter at Tsumeb to Walvis Bay was also given the green light and commenced in 2015 with one full train per week consisting of one locomotive pulling 27 wagons.
“Soon there will be five trains per week transporting acid to Walvis Bay,” said the managing director of TransNamib, Hippy Tjivikua.
“There is a countrywide effort to get freight back on rail and large trucks off our national roads,” commented Leon Steyn, D&M Rail’s site agent at Otjiwarongo.
D&M Rail is doing ongoing civil construction work on the third phase of the Northern Railway Line Extension project, which links Ondangwa and Oshakati, which is expected to be completed by next year.
Six-thousand tons of rail will be used on the extension between Ondangwa and Oshakati, which should last 100 years.
This railway line will eventually connect Namibia to Angola and it is expected to stimulate economic growth for the agricultural and manufacturing sectors in the northern regions.

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Namibian Sun 2024-03-29

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Katima Mulilo: 19° | 36° Rundu: 19° | 29° Eenhana: 19° | 29° Oshakati: 21° | 30° Ruacana: 20° | 33° Tsumeb: 19° | 29° Otjiwarongo: 16° | 29° Omaruru: 19° | 32° Windhoek: 17° | 29° Gobabis: 17° | 30° Henties Bay: 16° | 20° Wind speed: 22km/h, Wind direction: S, Low tide: 11:22, High tide: 05:24, Low Tide: 23:26, High tide: 17:46 Swakopmund: 16° | 17° Wind speed: 24km/h, Wind direction: SW, Low tide: 11:20, High tide: 05:22, Low Tide: 23:24, High tide: 17:44 Walvis Bay: 16° | 22° Wind speed: 27km/h, Wind direction: SW, Low tide: 11:20, High tide: 05:21, Low Tide: 23:24, High tide: 17:43 Rehoboth: 19° | 30° Mariental: 23° | 34° Keetmanshoop: 24° | 35° Aranos: 22° | 33° Lüderitz: 15° | 28° Ariamsvlei: 24° | 35° Oranjemund: 14° | 25° Luanda: 27° | 28° Gaborone: 20° | 32° Lubumbashi: 17° | 26° Mbabane: 16° | 21° Maseru: 11° | 29° Antananarivo: 16° | 27° Lilongwe: 17° | 27° Maputo: 20° | 28° Windhoek: 17° | 29° Cape Town: 17° | 28° Durban: 20° | 24° Johannesburg: 16° | 24° Dar es Salaam: 26° | 32° Lusaka: 20° | 30° Harare: 16° | 29° Currency: GBP to NAD 23.8 | EUR to NAD 20.37 | CNY to NAD 2.61 | USD to NAD 18.88 | DZD to NAD 0.14 | AOA to NAD 0.02 | BWP to NAD 1.33 | EGP to NAD 0.39 | KES to NAD 0.14 | NGN to NAD 0.01 | ZMW to NAD 0.74 | ZWL to NAD 0.04 | BRL to NAD 3.77 | RUB to NAD 0.2 | INR to NAD 0.23 | USD to DZD 133.85 | USD to AOA 832.63 | USD to BWP 13.71 | USD to EGP 47.35 | USD to KES 130.98 | USD to NGN 1303.34 | USD to ZAR 18.87 | USD to ZMW 25.01 | USD to ZWL 321 | Stock Exchange: JSE All Share Index 74536 Up +0.85% | Namibian Stock Exchange (NSX) Overall Index 1528.69 Up +0.84% | Casablanca Stock Exchange (CSE) MASI 12986.94 Up +0.04% | Egyptian Exchange (EGX) 30 Index 27559.35 Down -2.36% | Botswana Stock Exchange (BSE) DCI Same 0 | NSX: MTC 7.75 SAME | Anirep 8.99 SAME | Capricorn Investment group 17.34 SAME | FirstRand Namibia Ltd 49 DOWN 0.50% | Letshego Holdings (Namibia) Ltd 4.1 UP 2.50% | Namibia Asset Management Ltd 0.7 SAME | Namibia Breweries Ltd 31.49 UP 0.03% | Nictus Holdings - Nam 2.22 SAME | Oryx Properties Ltd 12.1 UP 1.70% | Paratus Namibia Holdings 11.99 SAME | SBN Holdings 8.45 SAME | Trustco Group Holdings Ltd 0.48 SAME | B2Gold Corporation 47.34 DOWN 1.50% | Local Index closed 677.62 UP 0.12% | Overall Index closed 1534.6 DOWN 0.05% | Osino Resources Corp 19.47 DOWN 2.41% | Commodities: Gold US$ 2 233.12/OZ UP +1.93% | Copper US$ 3.99/lb UP +0.12% | Zinc US$ 2 455.50/T UP 0% | Brent Crude Oil US$ 87.65/BBP UP +1.46% | Platinum US$ 908.62/OZ UP +1.53% Sport results: Weather: Katima Mulilo: 19° | 36° Rundu: 19° | 29° Eenhana: 19° | 29° Oshakati: 21° | 30° Ruacana: 20° | 33° Tsumeb: 19° | 29° Otjiwarongo: 16° | 29° Omaruru: 19° | 32° Windhoek: 17° | 29° Gobabis: 17° | 30° Henties Bay: 16° | 20° Wind speed: 22km/h, Wind direction: S, Low tide: 11:22, High tide: 05:24, Low Tide: 23:26, High tide: 17:46 Swakopmund: 16° | 17° Wind speed: 24km/h, Wind direction: SW, Low tide: 11:20, High tide: 05:22, Low Tide: 23:24, High tide: 17:44 Walvis Bay: 16° | 22° Wind speed: 27km/h, Wind direction: SW, Low tide: 11:20, High tide: 05:21, Low Tide: 23:24, High tide: 17:43 Rehoboth: 19° | 30° Mariental: 23° | 34° Keetmanshoop: 24° | 35° Aranos: 22° | 33° Lüderitz: 15° | 28° Ariamsvlei: 24° | 35° Oranjemund: 14° | 25° Luanda: 27° | 28° Gaborone: 20° | 32° Lubumbashi: 17° | 26° Mbabane: 16° | 21° Maseru: 11° | 29° Antananarivo: 16° | 27° Lilongwe: 17° | 27° Maputo: 20° | 28° Windhoek: 17° | 29° Cape Town: 17° | 28° Durban: 20° | 24° Johannesburg: 16° | 24° Dar es Salaam: 26° | 32° Lusaka: 20° | 30° Harare: 16° | 29° Economic Indicators: Currency: GBP to NAD 23.8 | EUR to NAD 20.37 | CNY to NAD 2.61 | USD to NAD 18.88 | DZD to NAD 0.14 | AOA to NAD 0.02 | BWP to NAD 1.33 | EGP to NAD 0.39 | KES to NAD 0.14 | NGN to NAD 0.01 | ZMW to NAD 0.74 | ZWL to NAD 0.04 | BRL to NAD 3.77 | RUB to NAD 0.2 | INR to NAD 0.23 | USD to DZD 133.85 | USD to AOA 832.63 | USD to BWP 13.71 | USD to EGP 47.35 | USD to KES 130.98 | USD to NGN 1303.34 | USD to ZAR 18.87 | USD to ZMW 25.01 | USD to ZWL 321 | Stock Exchange: JSE All Share Index 74536 Up +0.85% | Namibian Stock Exchange (NSX) Overall Index 1528.69 Up +0.84% | Casablanca Stock Exchange (CSE) MASI 12986.94 Up +0.04% | Egyptian Exchange (EGX) 30 Index 27559.35 Down -2.36% | Botswana Stock Exchange (BSE) DCI Same 0 | NSX: MTC 7.75 SAME | Anirep 8.99 SAME | Capricorn Investment group 17.34 SAME | FirstRand Namibia Ltd 49 DOWN 0.50% | Letshego Holdings (Namibia) Ltd 4.1 UP 2.50% | Namibia Asset Management Ltd 0.7 SAME | Namibia Breweries Ltd 31.49 UP 0.03% | Nictus Holdings - Nam 2.22 SAME | Oryx Properties Ltd 12.1 UP 1.70% | Paratus Namibia Holdings 11.99 SAME | SBN Holdings 8.45 SAME | Trustco Group Holdings Ltd 0.48 SAME | B2Gold Corporation 47.34 DOWN 1.50% | Local Index closed 677.62 UP 0.12% | Overall Index closed 1534.6 DOWN 0.05% | Osino Resources Corp 19.47 DOWN 2.41% | Commodities: Gold US$ 2 233.12/OZ UP +1.93% | Copper US$ 3.99/lb UP +0.12% | Zinc US$ 2 455.50/T UP 0% | Brent Crude Oil US$ 87.65/BBP UP +1.46% | Platinum US$ 908.62/OZ UP +1.53%