With several new iron ore railways in prospect in Guinea, it is useful to summarise the railway situation in that country:
These lines are likely to be of heavy duty, standard gauge contruction.
The Kalia and Simandou (south) mines appear to share the railway to Matakong port, which will be open access to all who wish to use it (for a fee).
Rio Tinto of the Simandou (south) mine has provided funding for road construction and repairs, a new airport and communications infrastructure around Beyla and Kankan-N’zérékoré. In addition, Rio Tinto worked with the Government to create the Guinea Transport Committee[1], through which they are presently funding studies to expand rail service in Guinea.
The Simandou (north) mine, which has agreements between the governments of Guinea and Liberia to build a shorter and cheaper railway to Didia, will spend some of that saving upgrading existing delapidated metre gauge Central Trans-Guinean Railway in Guinea for light duty use. Guinea has talked in the past about converting this line to standard gauge, which may make even more sense if the Central line is linked to the new standard gauge line in the South.
The three railways list are all heavy duty and most likely standard gauge and will operate trains of about 20,000 tonnes in weight of about 200 wagons. With trains of this size operating 5 days per week, 48 weels per year, only 6 trains per day are needed to carry 30 million tonnes per year, and this has an implication for the number of crossing loops that would be needed on the single line.
Guinea also has a number of other railways carrying smaller tonneages of Bauxite and other minerals, including:
