NOW that Zimbabwe has been revitalising its primary production in agriculture, mining and heavy industry, there is a need to restore the National Railways of Zimbabwe to the sort of heavy lifter it once was and to even extend the track network.
The railways opened up the country in the 1890s and the early 1900s with two major lines: the north-south line through Botswana, Bulawayo and Victoria Falls into Zambia and the east west line from Beira via Mutare, Harare, Gweru and connecting with the other line at Bulawayo.
This very basic grid saw the 1950s extension to Maputo for a second port connection in Mozambique, the 1970s connection between Rutenga and Beitbridge for a strategic connection to South Africa, and the Bulawayo-Beitbridge line at the end of the last century.
Spur lines had been driven into the major farming and mining areas over the decades, since rail was the main way of moving grain and mining output.
That network still exists and is still there, and even the railway sidings into the heavy industrial sites of the major cities along the line of rail still exist, although no wagons have been down them for some time.
But generally a lot of the rail traffic that used to dominate transport in Zimbabwe has melted away, and the transformation of our economy to more secondary and service industry has meant that more industrialists are prepared to use trucks.
There has been debate and discussion on how to revamp rail services, which largely require investment to replace old locomotives and old rolling stock. Much of what is on the rails is several decades old and some was bought new way back deep in colonial times. So replacement is required.
The sort of new customers who are likely to be becoming on line and even dominating the rail network are the sort of really heavy industries and mining we are now seeing in the Second Republic.
Companies in Hwange are managing to export coke south and north, and that sort of modest value high bulk heavy product should be moved over rail. It would be much cheaper than road.
Other major mining companies in the quintupling we are seeing in our mining over the last five years have expressed interest in using rail as a cheaper option to road.
Now the owners of the largest single investment into Zimbabwe, the Dinson Iron and Steel Company, have made it very clear that they want the rail link that was planned as part of their investment.
Basically Dinson need to get steel products, a lot of steel products, out of the Manhize-Mvuma area down to the coast at Beira for export around Africa and the world.
While Zimbabwe and its neighbours will take some production, the plant is so large as ever more phases are commissioned, that the bulk of production will have to be exported, and by the time those extra phases have been added Dinson wants the capacity.
Manhize-Mvuma is not at present on the rail grid, but it just requires a 50km extension of the track to establish that connection, which is why discussion has now been initiated so that when the output is there the track will be there.
Eventually Manhize will be Africa's largest single steel mill and moving into the cut-throat global steel businesses.
Keeping transport charges to a minimum requires using the railway to the nearest port, Beira and then loading the ships.
This will put Manhize into roughly where other global giants have their mills and most importantly, ensuring that railway and sea traffic can move the bulk of the product.
But the existing network can be used a lot more, and with the sort of miners, major agriculture stocks, and the new generation of primary industry that is now coming in, railways will be seen as more desirable for the heavy lifting transport.
NRZ backed by the Government have now started the long process of rebuilding the fleet. Zimbabwe has managed arrange normal commercial-level financing to import nine large diesel-electric locomotives from India along with 350 wagons.
This is not a huge fleet, but since all will be brand new it will be effective and provides the starting point to rebuild services back to the level where they need to be.
Once the primary producers see more rail traffic they will provide more rail traffic and that will allow NRZ to keep building its fleet.
There is also room for more passenger traffic. There was a time when almost all travel on the intercity routes along the line of rail were done by rail.
People might own cars, but many preferred to use the train in those days. For a start you could have a decent restaurant diner as you travelled, get a full night's sleep and be able to look at the scenery in comfort.
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Some of this could be restored. While the narrow Cape gauge in most of Africa means that the ultra-high speed trains of Europe cannot be run, we can still concentrate on comfort to build up a clientele.
We have seen efforts to put in commuter rail services, and here we could put in the double track required for a major service with trains in both directions during the day reasonably easily since the civil engineering within city boundaries was done for double track.
Many major cities are boosting rail to cope with mass transit services, and even car dominant cities like Lost Angeles are building rail lines.
It is not old fashioned.
So the NRZ has markets now for its services, the primary haulage of the really heavy goods Zimbabwe is now producing again or is adding to what it produces, plus what will be the growing heavy industrial base, plus the need to move large numbers of people to and from work in the major cities, plus some rather specialised tourism.
The Indian order for more rolling stock is timely.
