Kaduna ICD comes alive as NRC deploys 18 wagons for cargo evacuation

Abiola Seun

The Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) has expressed readiness to deploy the 18 newly – imported railway wagons to convey goods to inland container Dryports (ICDs) in Kaduna and other states in order to decongest the Apapa seaports.

Managing Director of the corporation, Engr. Fidet Okhiria, attributed importation of the 18 wagons to renewed effort by federal government to decongestant Apapa ports from thousands of trailers and tankers that convey commodities and petroleum products on the Nigerian highways who daily litter the seaports.

Each of the wagons according to him has capacity to freight two units of 20 feet containers and one unit of 40 feet container.

The NRC boss acknowledged the fact that some of the locomotive engines had been faulty adding that “Already the corporation has placed order for spare parts which have started arriving in the country.”

He explained further that when orders were placed for spare parts, it takes some time before the spare parts would be manufactured.

Okhiria averred that the rail mode of transport all over the world is preferred for the evacuation of bulky goods and that if properly utilised, it would help to increase lifespan of the nation’s roads which have over the years been damaged by heavy duty trucks.

He stated further that evacuation of goods by rail would not in any way affect road haulage business because goods transported by rail would still move by road to their various destinations.

Some stakeholders have expressed concern over the recent importation of open wagons from China by NRC for use on the existing narrow gauge even though there are no functional locomotive engines that can travel with container loaded wagons.

Investigation showed that currently, the corporation has capacity to evacuate 20 footer and 40 footer containers from Apapa port to Abuja depot at Ebute-Metta Junction, Ijoko and Omi Adio railway depots for onward transfer to parked trucks that evacuate the containers by road to their various destinations.

It was reliably gathered that due to lack of functional locomotive engines that could operate long distance, containers designated for Kaduna and Kano Inland Container Depots (ICD’s) are moved (on short distance) from Apapa port by rail to Omi Adio in Oyo State from where the containers are transferred to trucks and moved by road to the aforementioned Inland container depots.