ESR, or the Eswatini Railways, began its work more than six decades ago. At the threshold of growth in regional transportation, it stands today. Eswatini has set 60 as the retirement age; however, ESR is continuously growing in productivity and profitability. It is an altogether different era for railways in the country now. Being a landlocked country with a relatively small market, its railways play a wider regional role, linking South Africa and Mozambique with other members of the SADC region.
The ESR development story is located within a wider historical context of colonial infrastructure development. The Portuguese colonial authorities, in 1902, advanced plans for a railway to connect Swaziland-Eswatini with Lourenço Marques-Maputo-with the aim of developing their trade through the port. South Africa also recognized the strategic potential of railways and laid a railway line to the Swazi border from the east in order to have the Swazi export through Richards Bay’s port. But the British colonial authorities then in charge in Swaziland did not see much use for rail as the country had little to export.
That all changed in the 1960s when the Ngwenya Mine in the west of the country began to produce ore that needed a reliable transport system to reach the coast. With no highways in place, the construction of a rail line from Goba in Mozambique to the Swazi industrial center of Matsapha began in 1961, finally opening in 1964 with King Sobhuza II blowing the whistle to signal the start of operations.
This progress in ESR was, however, thwarted by extraneous circumstances. Conflict in the Mozambique Civil War during the 1970s severed the system, but South African Railways, now Transnet Freight Rail, intervened to provide financing for a link with Golela, allowing the easy connection of Swaziland via rail to the port cities of Durban and Richards Bay by 1978. Over time, as the conflict in Mozambique persisted, a new rail line was built around Mozambique to allow South African freight from Phalaborwa to travel through Swaziland to the coast.
Today, ESR has 301 kilometres of narrow-gauge rail on three principal lines: the Goba railway, which links to Mozambique; the Komatipoort railway, which links to the Mpumalanga region of South Africa; and the Richards Bay railway. Traditionally relying on cargo based in Swaziland, such as sugar and textiles, the profitability of ESR has been ever-more dependent on transit traffic from neighboring countries.
Until the setting up of a dry port in Matsapha in the 1990s to handle shipping to South Africa and other inland countries, such as Zambia, little took place. Further evidence of the growing role of ESR in regional logistics came in 2021 when it facilitated the transport of one million tons of coal from Mpumalanga to Maputo with coal being transferred to rail at the Sidvokodvo siding.
Moreover, the Swazilink project promises further capacity building and regional connectivity for ESR in the future. It is a 146 km railway line joint venture with Transnet Freight Rail from Lothair in South Africa to Eswatini, linking directly to Maputo, where the train configuration will include 2.5 kilometers in length and have a capacity for up to 12 trains per day in each direction on the new TFR/ESR General Freight Business Corridor.
According to the now long-serving chief of ESR, Gideon Mahlalela, who said so in 1998, the future of freight movement in Eswatini is on rail? Centred on its environmental benefits, cost-effectiveness, and increased efficiency, rail transport is at the heart of ESR’s vision of becoming a key player within the region’s logistics sector. With a budding infrastructure base, including new projects such as the recently completed Swazilink, Eswatini Railways is well-placed to become a vital artery for Southern Africa trade and economic growth.
