Copper cable chaos⁠ — 3km stolen every day

Transnet has warned the theft of overhead cables and vandalism of its property has reached unprecedented levels, which could force it to switch over entirely from diesel-electric to diesel-only locomotives.

The state-owned transport agency’s largest division, Transnet Freight Rail (TFR), issued a statement on Wednesday in which it said it lost over 1,000km of copper cable to theft in 2021.

That works out to an average of 3.18km of copper cable stolen every day.

TFR said it suffered an average of 600 incidents of theft and vandalism every month.

“The incidents range from the theft of copper cable, vandalism of substations which are crucial to the running of our electrified fleet, theft of wiring and cable from locomotives, theft of wooden rail sleepers and other malicious damage to Transnet property,” it stated.

More recently, cable theft has increased sharply.

“In the period 29 October to 10 November, 55km of cable was stolen, 9.4km of which was stolen in the last 48 hours alone,” TFR stated.

The rampant theft and vandalism severely impact TFR’s freight movements and the revenue of itself and its customers.

As a result of security incidents, it has had to cancel 1,190 trains in the year to date.

“Many of the incidents take place on high traffic and high volume corridors, moving major bulk commodities for our customers,” TFR explained.

“We have seen a particular spike in incidents in the NorthCor (where we move Coal), CapeCor (where we move Manganese) and the Central Corridor, which is a junction connecting all of our corridors.”

“These lost volumes can never be recouped,” TFR stated. It estimated the damage was in the “hundreds of millions”.

The company added the consequences of cable theft were not limited to financial losses.

“TFR security is under constant threat, such as the incident last week where a security officer was ambushed and fatally injured at the Natalspruit Depot in Germiston.”

The company added it continued to engage law enforcement agencies to assist in crime prevention across its network and pleaded with the general public to report suspicious activity near and around its network.

Reports can be made by calling the Crime Stop Hotline on 08600 01000 or emailing [email protected]. TFR assured it would treat information provided confidentially.

TFR publishes updates that show the length of cable lost along its various corridors every day.

The table below shows the cable lost across all corridors in the last week.

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