South Africa's rail reform has finally reached the tracks. Transport Minister Barbara Creecy says private operators will soon move millions of tons of freight on Transnet's network, but the bigger challenge remains fixing ageing rail infrastructure.

To answer the obvious questions about why South Africa needs the rail reforms: our tracks are too narrow. To answer the other obvious question: R1.5-trillion. That was a 2015 estimate for a full track replacement and widening of all the clearances across the network.

The figure has since ballooned, and with Transnet currently begging the Treasury for just R35-billion in urgent repairs, the dream of standard-gauge rails is out of reach. For now, South Africa's future lies in opening the existing narrow network to private operators - and hoping they can keep the economy moving.

A reform decades in the making

The journey to this point has been long. A 2009 discussion paper first raised the idea of restructuring rail. Six years later, the Cabinet approved a Green Paper on National Rail Policy, followed by a Draft White Paper in 2017. But it wasn't until March 2022 that the White Paper was officially adopted, confirming that the state would own the tracks while private...