The South African Heavy Haul Association (SAHHA) conference 2022 took place at Emperor’s Palace, Johannesburg, on 2- 4 August 2022. The Theme of the conference was “Safe, Resilient and Efficient Heavy Haul – pit to port.”

The Heavy Haul Association is famous for stimulating key discussions and collaboration amongst global rail experts. The SAHHA 2022 conference was a first conference post the Covid-19 Pandemic era and served as a revival to the Industry. The conference had a wide range of topics that were presented, and insights were shared by several professionals from Transnet, Mining organizations, suppliers, research institutions and industry expects on areas of Infrastructure, Rolling Stock, Maintenance, Operations, Systems and Processes, Safety, Security and Human factors.

There were fruitful strategic discussions on National Rail Policy, logistics challenges and opportunities, and implications on export of commodities. In addition, there was a sharing of best practice and successes from some of the Heavy Haul member organisations of the International heavy Haul Association (IHHA), as well as panel discussions that set a strategic direction of the industry.

SAHHA 2022 conference marked a major milestone for the industry, where an announcement was made of a launch of the expanded scope of the South African Heavy Haul Association to include the mines and the ports, making it pit to port. This ensures a “total system approach” to addressing challenges within the value chain, from train loading at the mines, rail hauling to vessel loading at the ports. This will further promote effective collaboration amongst the various key players within the heavy haul supply chain.