Swazi Rail

(

to Nelspruit)

Komatipoort

(to Maputo

)

Komati River

Komati Mill

(

to Maputo)

Benicon

Goba

South African border

Mozambican border

(to Ngwenya

)

South African border

(

to Durban)

Swazi Rail (SR), also Swaziland Rail, is the national railway corporation of Swaziland.

As in the rest of Southern Africa, the 301 kilometres (187 mi) rail system of Swaziland is built to the narrow Cape gauge of 1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in). SR provides only service for transportation of goods, not passengers.

SR's rail system is used to connect the land-locked country to the sea. The east-west link, called the Goba line, leads from Matsapha (near Manzini) through Sidvokodvo, Phuzumoya and Mpaka to Goba in Mozambique. From Goba a Mozambique Ports and Railways line connects to the ports of Matola and Maputo. Swazi Rail also has two connections to South Africa: a northern link from Mpaka to Komatipoort in Mpumalanga on the Pretoria–Maputo railway, and a southern link from Phuzumoya to Golela in KwaZulu-Natal, from where the Transnet network connects to the ports of Richards Bay and Durban.

In 1902 the British administration of Swaziland agreed with the Portuguese administration of Mozambique to construct a railway line from Lourenço Marques (now Maputo) to Swaziland. The Mozambican section as far as Goba was opened in 1905, but the line was not continued across the border. In 1927 the Zululand Railway in South Africa reached Golela on the southern border of Swaziland.The development of the Ngwenya Mine in the 1960s gave a new impulse to railway construction in Swaziland. Between 1961 and 1964 the east-west line was constructed from Goba to Matsapha and onwards to Ngwenya. Mining at Ngwenya ceased by 1980, and the railway beyond Matsapha was abandoned.

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Wikipedia