Goods train derails near Victoria Falls

By Rex Mphisa

A  goods train belonging to the privately-owned Beitbridge—Bulawayo Railway (BBR) derailed near Victoria Falls on Wednesday evening disrupting all rail traffic between the resort town and Bulawayo.

The derailment occurred a few kilometres from Thompson Junction near Victoria Falls and is suspected to have been caused by a distorted railway line that had succumbed to excessive heat.

National Railways spokesperson Fanuel Masikati referred all questions to the BBR, who in turn, referred questions back to NRZ.

“It is not our train, it is a BBR train and they are the ones you should be talking to,” he said.

The official from BBR who referred all questions to NRZ said they were only running their locomotive on the national railway line and were not in a position to say anything.

“We are only operating a train on their line and they are best placed to comment on the accident,” said the official from BBR.

“We run a train from Mpopoma (terminal) to Beitbridge and that is where we can say something. This occurred on an NRZ line.”

According to well-placed sources, there were no injuries in the accident but some wagons were thrown up to 20 metres from the railway line.

“It was a huge derailment, some wagons were thrown some 20 metres off the line and we suspect it was caused by heat which deformed the steel road,” said the sources.

Zimbabwe has been experiencing high temperatures in the past weeks and Victoria Falls and Hwange areas which lie within the country’s ecological Region 5, experience intense heat at this time of the year.

Passenger trains between Victoria Falls and Bulawayo have been cancelled as a result of the damage which could take up to three days to repair, said the sources.

NRZ employees were already on site to retrieve the dislodged train and make the line passable.

The BBR, which is a privately-owned company, runs a railway line linking Bulawayo directly with South Africa through Beitbridge.

The line was built on a build, operate and transfer (BOT) arrangement with the government of Zimbabwe and will be inherited by the government after 30 years from its inception in 1999.

BBR, however, ferries some of its goods to Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo where it has similar arrangements with railway companies in those countries. The Zimbabwe Mail