Abstract
M.Phil. (Engineering Management)
Various factors have been highlighted as causes of reliability deficiency for railway track, globally. It is rather opaque as to which of these factors are prevalent in the South African railway industry. The study develops a framework for identifying and classifying causes of reliability deficiency for Railway Track (also referred to as Permanent way Infrastructure). The researcher employed the exploratory sequential mixed methods; a qualitative research in a form of structured interviews was conducted and the subsequent results were used to build a quantitative research survey through which, the researcher solicited responses from 52 respondents. Target respondents were mainly engineers, project managers, and Technicians experienced in the management of Railway infrastructure. Findings reveal that Poor maintenance policies, strategies and implementations is the most pervasive factor causing reliability deficiency of railway Track in South Africa whilst, Insufficient funding and Aging rail network became the second and third prevalent factors, respectively. The research also concluded, among other things, that; Track components used in South Africa are as good as those used by other major railway organizations globally. The study recommended that; railway organizations in the country should priorities the replacement of old infrastructure, adequate funding should be made available for construction of new railway lines, maintenance and rehabilitation projects, and as part of continuous improvements, railway organizations should realign and modernize their maintenance strategies and implementations.