The growing need to restore the National Railways of Zimbabwe to full operational status is now being attended to with the African Export Import Bank prepared to lend US$115 million to initiate the process.
The sort of money required can be most easily apprehended when we look at the other US$81 million of the loan. That will buy nine locomotives and 315 wagons, and fairly obviously a far larger fleet will be required when the railways are back to full operation. Rhodes created four companies to build and own the track from the South African border with Botswana through Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia and the line down to Beira.
In many cases the scheduling of the upgrades has to be done so that large sections of the network are upgraded simultaneously to ensure that there is that revenue. Internally within Zimbabwe there is growing bulk traffic. For example we need to move some types of grain from the north-eastern provinces to the other side of the country; we need to move sugar and ethanol from the Lowveld to the markets; we need to move coal and other resources, remembering that there are now moves to get tobacco farmers to use more coal rather than chop trees down when they cure their leaf.