Ramaphosa goes quiet on new bullet train for South Africa

South Africa has plans to build a new high-speed rail network, but there has been little word on how the project is developing.

The initiative was not mentioned during the president’s 2025 State of the Nation (SONA) Address, and the Presidency and the Department of Transport (DoT) have been quiet about the progress made on the National Rail Masterplan.

In the dark

President Ramaphosa last spoke about his promise to build a new high-speed rail, or “bullet train,” for South Africa during his weekly newsletter to the public back in October 2024.

In the letter, he confirmed that the trains would form part of the nation’s National Rail Masterplan, which is scheduled to be completed before the end of 2025.

“[The masterplan] will also cover high-speed rail over long distances between centres,” he said.

Shortly afterwards, Engineering News reported that an interim version of the National Rail plan should be ready by February 2025, after which an eight-month consultation process would follow.

Despite this, the masterplan was notably absent from the 2025 SONA proceedings earlier this month, and the high-speed rail project has been given no further updates.

Prior to October 2024, the last time the high-speed train network was mentioned was during the 2024 SONA speech, when Ramaphosa announced that progress had been made with cabinet approving the necessary framework for a new line between Johannesburg and Durban.

“Cabinet approved the prioritisation of the Johannesburg to Durban corridor for a detailed feasibility study, and the Johannesburg-Polokwane to Musina and Johannesburg to Mbombela corridors will be put to the market,” according to an extract from the cabinet briefing summary.

While little information has since been provided for the Durban and Mbombela lines, the Johannesburg-Polokwane project received an update when Limpopo Premier Phophi Ramathuba and Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi announced that the two provinces had formed an implementation protocol for the corridor.

The proposed line will run for approximately 500km from Gauteng to the northern border with Zimbabwe, linking seven towns and cities from Pretoria to Polokwane and Musina.

The president’s vision

Ramaphosa first spoke about his bullet train plan across South Africa during the 2019 SONA, where he presented the idea of “smart cities” linked by high-speed rail corridors.

“We should imagine a country where bullet trains pass through Johannesburg as they travel from here to Musina, and they stop in Buffalo City on their way from eThekwini back here,” he said.

“Has the time not arrived to build a new smart city founded on the technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution? I would like to invite South Africans to begin imagining this prospect.”

That same year, the former director-general at the DoT, Alec Moemi, declared that the required framework had already been deployed and implemented and that the project was anticipated to launch in 2025.

In 2022, former Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula published South Africa’s National Rail Policy White Paper, laying the groundwork for the proposed high-speed rail systems.

The end goal of the project is to provide a fast yet affordable transport alternative to the nation’s low-cost airlines, which are currently struggling to keep up with demand.

While the South African government plans to finance the operation itself, China has expressed interest in investing, and has experience from its own bullet train projects that could prove useful.

China has an extensive high-speed rail network with trains that can reach up to 600km/h, which would hypothetically be able to travel from Joburg to Durban in less than an hour if a similar model could ever be implemented here.