First Cargo Train Arrived At Ibadan 2½ Hours After Departing Apapa Port With Thirty 40-foot Containers

First cargo train arrived Ibadan port 2½ hours after departing Apapa port with thirty (30) 40-foot containers.

It comes a month after the Minister of Transportation, flagoff the first cargo movement on the Lagos-Ibadan rail corridor.

Unlike accident prone articulated trucks, freight trains can ship more and heavier goods, especially containers, faster.

The first container freight train of the Lagos-Ibadan railway on Friday November 3rd 2023 arrived at the Ibadan station, nearly two and a half hours after departing from Apapa Port with a total of thirty (30) 40-foot containers.

John Zhao of China Civil Engineering Construction Company (CCECC), the company which handled the Lagos-Ibadan railway project, made this known on his official Twitter handle.

“The first container freight train of the Lagos-Ibadan railway, built by #CCECC, has set off from Apapa Port in Lagos, #Nigeria. It departed from Apapa Port and carried a total of thirty 40-foot containers, arriving at Ibadan station in just two and a half hours”.

Replying to John Zhao’s tweet, a user said :

“The is good news. Heavy goods should rationally be in rails where possible not roads. This will help decongest the Lagos- Ibadan expressway and also bring some sanity to Apapa Port. That rail can easily be extended to other major cities for ease of transfer of imported goods and those to be transported exported.

It comes a month after the Minister of Transportation, Senator Saidu Alkali flagoff the first cargo movement on the Lagos-Ibadan rail corridor, and nearly two years after the former President Muhammadu Buhari inaugurated the project.

This initiative aims to alleviate the congestion at the Apapa port, which handles a significant portion of Nigeria’s exports and imports in the First Quarter (Q1) of 2022 (92.28% of exports and 60.77% of imports).

Unlike accident prone articulated trucks, freight trains can ship more and heavier goods, especially containers, faster. Again, the risk of a rail accident is around 40 times lower compared to road transport.

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