South Africa is beginning one of the biggest changes to its freight transport system in decades, opening Transnet’s railway network to private train operators and investors as the government tries to revive a logistics system that has constrained mining exports, industrial growth and the wider economy.
The tracks will remain state-owned, but the companies running trains, financing rolling stock and potentially investing in sections of the network are increasingly private.
That distinction matters.
For decades, Transnet has effectively controlled the country’s freight railway system. Now a new model is emerging in which the state retains ownership of strategic infrastructure while private companies compete for access, invest in locomotives and wagons, and build businesses around the movement of coal, manganese, chrome, iron ore, containers and other freight.
The first 11 private train operating companies have secured access to the network. Together, they are expected to add about 24 million tonnes of freight capacity, with the potential to reach 52 million tonnes over five years.
For Who Owns Africa, the question is bigger than who operates the trains.
It is about who supplies the capital.
Transnet remains the gatekeeper
Transnet is not being sold.
The government has repeatedly stressed that South Africa’s strategic rail infrastructure will remain in public ownership. The reform instead separates infrastructure management from train operations, allowing private companies to use the network under regulated access arrangements.
The Transnet Rail Infrastructure Manager, or TRIM, has become central to this new architecture. Its role is to manage access to the network, allocate train paths and ultimately generate revenue from access charges that can help fund maintenance, rehabilitation and expansion.
This is a significant change from the old vertically integrated model.
Instead of one state-controlled operator owning or controlling the infrastructure and carrying most of the freight, the system is moving towards infrastructure access and multiple train operators.
Government approved the framework through the National Rail Policy and the Freight Logistics Roadmap. In 2025, the Transport Ministry said limited state resources made private investment critical and launched a process to attract capital into five priority rail and port corridors.
The response was substantial. A government process to identify private-sector interest received 162 formal responses.
The first private players
In August 2025, South Africa selected 11 companies from 25 applicants that had sought access to Transnet’s network. The allocations covered 41 routes across six corridors, including coal and chrome routes in the north, iron ore, manganese, containers, fuel and general freight.
By May 2026, Transnet had named the operators and concluded Rail Access Agreements with them.
They include Grindrod, Menar, MSC-linked TLD Marine, ARC South Africa, The Railway Corporation, Sharp Logistics, Barberry, Minrail, IRACEMA, Motheo Logistics and Interlinks.
The list reveals the direction of travel.
It is not simply a railway industry story. Shipping companies, mining interests, logistics companies and specialist rail businesses are converging around the same asset: access to South Africa’s mineral and industrial supply chains.
Grindrod takes a position
Among the most established names is Grindrod, the South African logistics group with interests spanning freight services, terminals and shipping-related infrastructure.
Grindrod signed a Rail Access Agreement with TRIM in May 2026. It expects to begin operations under the open-access system in 2027 and initially plans to move 288,000 tonnes using two allocated slots on the North-East Corridor.
The significance extends beyond the initial tonnage.
Private operators need locomotives, wagons, maintenance facilities, technology, crews and financing. That creates an investment market around the railway even when the track itself remains in government hands.
This is where infrastructure capital enters the story.
Pension and infrastructure money
One of the clearest examples is Traxtion, a South African private rail services company that is positioning itself for the liberalisation of the freight market.
Reuters reported this month that Traxtion plans to invest 3.4 billion rand, about $210 million, in additional rail capacity, including 46 locomotives and 920 wagons.
The company’s funding also shows how institutional capital is moving into African rail.
In June, Traxtion announced an $86 million equity raise involving STANLIB Infrastructure Investments, Standard Bank and Harith, through Harith’s infrastructure funds. Pallidus Capital facilitated the transaction.
That is an important signal.
Pension-linked and infrastructure investment capital does not necessarily need to buy railway tracks to gain exposure to the sector. It can invest in the companies that own rolling stock, provide rail services or operate logistics businesses.
The financial model is therefore changing from state-funded infrastructure towards a layered system in which public assets support privately financed businesses.
Mining companies are natural investors
Mining is likely to remain the strongest commercial force behind the reform.
South Africa’s mines are heavily dependent on reliable railways to move bulk commodities from inland operations to export ports. When rail fails, companies often turn to trucks, increasing costs and putting additional pressure on roads.
Exxaro Resources illustrates the problem.
The mining group has been working with Transnet to move more manganese by rail after acquiring manganese assets in 2026. Reuters reported that transporting manganese by road is about 37% more expensive than rail, while logistics costs account for 43% of free-on-board prices in the operation.
Exxaro’s Tshipi Borwa mine produces about 3.5 million tonnes of manganese annually, with 46% of the material currently transported by road. The company wants to shift more of that volume back to rail.
The economics explain why mining companies have such a strong interest in rail reform.
A functioning railway can reduce logistics costs, increase export capacity and make new mining investment more commercially viable.
Foreign capital is already arriving
The opening is also attracting international companies.
MSC, the world’s largest container shipping company, is among the private interests entering the network through TLD Marine, according to South African business media. The participation gives an international logistics group a direct connection to the country’s inland freight system.
ARC South Africa, meanwhile, has been identified as a UAE-linked participant in the new operating landscape.
The arrival of foreign capital is important because South Africa’s rail problem is too large to be solved simply by changing who drives locomotives.
The network requires billions of rand in rehabilitation, new equipment, security, maintenance and capacity expansion. International investors can bring capital and technical expertise, but they will expect commercial returns.
That creates a delicate balance for government.
The infrastructure remains public
South Africa is deliberately avoiding a straightforward sale of its railway assets.
The government’s stated position is that strategic rail lines and ports remain public assets. Private participation is intended to bring competition and investment without transferring ownership of the underlying infrastructure.
That could prove politically important.
The alternative, full privatisation or concessioning of major rail corridors, is already being debated. The Democratic Alliance has argued that allowing private companies merely to run trains on Transnet infrastructure does not go far enough and has called for private concessions covering the operation, maintenance and investment in entire freight lines.
That debate goes directly to the ownership question.
Who controls the tracks controls an enormous part of the economics.
The next battle is over concessions
The government’s latest moves suggest the debate is moving beyond train slots.
In August 2026, Transnet announced that TRIM was seeking private-sector partners to refurbish, finance, operate and maintain parts of the B-Network, including lower-density branch lines. The process could eventually include concession arrangements.
This is where infrastructure funds, pension investors and specialist operators could become more important.
A concession can give private capital a longer-term role in an asset while leaving legal ownership with the state. For investors, that can provide predictable revenue. For government, it can mobilise capital without formally selling strategic infrastructure.
The question is whether South Africa can design these deals without creating private monopolies in place of a public one.
A new ownership map
The emerging structure is therefore more complicated than a simple public-versus-private argument.
The state owns the strategic railway infrastructure.
TRIM manages access to that infrastructure.
Transnet Freight Rail remains a major operator.
Private companies are buying or financing locomotives and wagons.
Mining companies are seeking greater control and reliability over their logistics chains.
Shipping and logistics groups are moving closer to inland freight.
Infrastructure investors and institutional capital are financing rolling stock and rail businesses.
Foreign companies are beginning to enter the market.
And government regulators are attempting to ensure that access remains competitive.
The result is a new ownership map in which control can be exercised without owning the tracks.
The African test case
South Africa’s experiment could become one of the most closely watched infrastructure reforms on the continent.
Across Africa, governments are under pressure to modernise railways while public finances remain constrained. Mineral producers need cheaper routes to export markets, while international investors are searching for long-term infrastructure opportunities.
Reuters reported this month that Traxtion is also positioning for rail reforms and mineral-driven opportunities in Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. Angola has already granted a 30-year concession for the Lobito Corridor to a Trafigura-led consortium, while other African rail projects are drawing Chinese and international capital.
The pattern is becoming visible.
Governments increasingly want to retain ownership of strategic infrastructure while using private capital to build, operate, finance and modernise it.
South Africa is testing whether that model can work at scale.
Who will own the future railway?
The immediate answer is still the South African state.
But that may not be the most important answer.
The more consequential question is who will own the assets surrounding the railway: the locomotives, wagons, operating companies, logistics terminals, maintenance businesses and long-term concessions.
That ownership is already becoming more diverse.
Grindrod has entered the market. Menar is involved. MSC has a route into the system. Traxtion is raising institutional capital. Infrastructure investors such as Harith and STANLIB are backing rolling stock and rail capacity. Mining companies have a direct economic interest in securing reliable freight corridors.
For Transnet, the challenge is to turn private participation into investment rather than simply private access.
For investors, the challenge is whether South Africa can provide reliable infrastructure, transparent regulation and enough freight volumes to justify billions of rand in capital.
For mining companies, the prize is lower logistics costs and greater export capacity.
And for the government, the ultimate test is whether it can attract private money without losing public control over an asset that remains fundamental to the country’s economic sovereignty.
South Africa may not be selling its railways.
But it is opening the doors around them.
That could prove to be the beginning of a much bigger shift in who owns Africa’s infrastructure.
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