By Esther Wright
With the objective of boosting iron ore haulage from the New Tonkolili Iron Ore Mines through the 192KM railway to the Pepel Shipping Port, Leone Rock Metal Group on the 20th April 2022 commissioned or unveiled three additional locomotives to those that the company was already using.
The locomotive is a rail transport vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. A single locomotive has the capacity to pull 30 wagons which are used to transport iron ore from the mines to the port. So far, the train sets 112 wagons to 4 locomotives and 90 wagons to 3 locomotives.
Commissioning or bringing in 3 new locomotives has brought the total locomotive capacity of the company to 12 since there are currently 8 available for haulage. The additional locomotives will improve the haulage capacity of the company so it can achieve a target of 25,200 tonnes daily and 9 million tonnes annually.
Railway Operation is an important infrastructure in maintaining and developing Leone Rock’s Railway and Port, as well as boosting the Sierra Leone economy. Between March 2021 to December 2021 Leone Rock Metal Group haulage 359 trains with a total of 2,523,531 Tons of Iron Ore.
It must be noted that the Leone Rock Metal Group is the parent company of Kingho Mining Company and Kingho Railway and Port Company Limited.
Kingho Railway and Port Company administer the 192-kilometer railway which leads from the New Tonkolili Iron Ore Mines to the Port town of Pepel, in Kamasondo Chiefdom, Port Loko District. It also operates the Pepel shipping port from which Iron Ore is transported outside the country.
