Lomé – Aného railway line
| Lomé – Aného | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Togo Coast Railway around 1905
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Route length: | 44 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 1000 mm ( meter gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Maximum slope : | 1.25 ‰ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Minimum radius : | 300 m | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Lomé – Aného railway was the first railway in the then German protected area of Togo . It connected the main town of Lome with the coastal town of Anecho over 44 kilometers . Colloquially, the coastal railway was also known as the coconut railway - coconut palms grew on the dunes between the beach and the lagoon , and oil palm products were often transported.
Traffic in front of the railway construction
Draft animals were rarely used in South Togo because they could not be used due to the Surra animal disease that was widespread there . The coastal shipping was that there was no natural harbor, little developed because of the dangerous surf and the fact. Transport was only carried out by boats on the inland waters near the coast and by porters. Even when the German colonialists introduced carts after taking possession of the country in 1884, they were often moved by Africans with their muscular strength.
planning
With the construction of the landing stage in Lome 1900–1904, a safe landing possibility for overseas ships was to be created for the country. At the same time, all customs formalities could be concentrated there. The existing roadstead in Anecho (formerly Klein-Popo ) should be closed. To compensate for this, a rail link between Lome and Anecho was to be built so that the goods traffic that had previously taken place in Anecho could be relocated to Lome without any problems. The alignment primarily corresponded to the economic interests of European merchants, but also partly compensated for the threatened loss of importance of Anecho.
The route corresponded to the shortest connection along the coast. The influence of the coastal town Kpeme settled Pflanzungsgesellschaft Kpeme that here a plantation and Bagida a Vorwerk operation may be one reason for the chosen route. It was decided not to cross the actual main area of origin of the export products northeast of Lake Togo .
construction
execution
Construction of the railway line began in early March 1904. Only after the landing stage had been completed could the building materials be safely cleared. The construction work was entrusted to the United Maschinenfabrik Augsburg and the Maschinenbaugesellschaft Nürnberg (MAN), Gustavsburg branch . The construction was technically relatively undemanding: earthworks and engineering structures were hardly necessary. 1.12 million marks were approved for the construction . The cost was around 23,000 marks per kilometer of rail. The approved amount was almost sufficient. The initially planned gauge of 750 millimeters was changed to meter gauge shortly before construction was carried out .
working conditions
The workers employed were almost exclusively Africans, who - compared to similar work in the neighboring colonies - received low wages . Local workers generally received a daily wage of 50 pfennigs for building the railway , plus 25 pfennigs food allowance. In the neighboring Gold Coast colony , however, daily wages of the equivalent of 2 marks were common. Many workers only worked in railway construction until they had earned their annual tax sum of 6 marks. The colonial administration therefore increasingly resorted to forced labor in order to secure enough workers for the railway construction. “Compulsory workers” received the same wages as voluntary workers, but were forced to work for half a year. Illnesses and deaths were particularly high among the forced labor force. The reasons for this were the unfamiliar climate, food and workload for compulsory workers from other parts of the country.
business
.jpg)
traffic
The coastal railway opened on July 18, 1905. On the same day the Anecho roadstead was closed to merchant shipping. The railway operations were initially taken over by the construction company Lenz & Co. from Berlin . On April 1, 1908, the operation was leased to the Deutsche Kolonialeisenbahn-Bau- und Betriebs-Gesellschaft in Berlin for twelve years.
In the palm groves of the coast and the fertile hinterland of Anecho, copra , maize and palm kernels were the main cargo.
Although the route was mainly built for the transport of goods, there was soon a strong rush of African passengers who had already ridden in the construction trains . However, a timetable for public passenger transport was not introduced until May 15, 1906. A pair of trains ran on weekdays and covered the distance in an hour and 50 minutes. Until 1914, around 38,000 to 40,000 people traveled annually on the coastal railway between Lome and its eastern catchment area. The average distance traveled by a person was 33.2 kilometers. The approach at the rural stops was considerable.
Company building and vehicle fleet
Significant operational buildings existed almost exclusively at the Lome station, from which the two other Togo railway lines, the Lomé – Kpalimé line and the Lomé – Blitta line, originated . The warehouse and locomotive halls that are still in use today are located in Lomé. There was also a turntable , water towers and workshops. The reception building in Lomé was two-story. The train stations on the route, for example in Porto Seguro (today Agbodrafo ), were mostly simple, single-storey waiting houses .
Initially, two tank locomotives of the type Bn2T were used as tractors , which were delivered by Henschel in 1904 ( construction numbers 6885 and 6886 ). The freight cars and 3rd class cars were mainly supplied by Beuchelt & Co. The 1st and 2nd class cars came from Waggonfabrik Uerdingen and MAN. The 3rd class passenger cars consisted only of empty, roofed freight cars - called Aimahu , "land canoe", by the Africans . Simple wagons remained predominant in the years that followed. At the end of 1912, the Togo Railway (TE) had 20 passenger, mail and baggage cars as well as 174 freight cars.
Development after the First World War
At the beginning of August 1914, there was slight damage to the railway line due to the First World War , but this was quickly repaired by the invading French troops. In the first few years after the takeover by British-French associations, Togo's railways were operated by the neighboring Gold Coast Government Railways . After the end of the First World War, the railway took over the French mandate administration of French Togoland . The endpoints of the coastal tram were renamed Lomé and Aného.
As a mandate holder, France was reluctant to invest in the railways, as the return of the area could not be ruled out. An originally planned parallel route from Tsévié to Tokpli , just under 50 kilometers north of Aného, was not implemented. The integration into a coherent railway network of French West Africa , the Regié des Chemins de Fer de l'Afrique Occidentale Française (RCFAOF), did not materialize either.
After Togo gained independence in 1960, the railways were quickly and completely converted from steam to diesel locomotives . The German car fleet continued to operate for a long time. Old German two- and four-axle vehicles were still to be found during the 1970s. At that time, four pairs of trains ran daily on the coastal tram, which took just over 80 minutes to travel the 44 kilometers.
In 1970 the train station in Lomé was rebuilt. The warehouse and locomotive halls from the German colonial era remained almost unchanged.
The railway line to Aného was closed in 1985. Today it is mostly dismantled.
Only at Kpeme has there been a 22-kilometer private meter-gauge track since 1961, which is used by SNPT to transport phosphate from the Hahotoe mine north of Lake Togo to a jetty on the coast.
See also
literature
- Franz Baltzer : The colonial railways with a special focus on Africa . Berlin 1916; Reprint: Leipzig 2008, ISBN 978-3-8262-0233-9 ( preview on Google Books ).
- Franz Baltzer: Togo. In: Freiherr von Röll: Encyclopedia of the Railway System . Volume 9, Berlin / Vienna 1921, pp. 332–334 (online) .
- Colonial Policy Action Committee: The Railways of Africa - Basics and Point of View for a Colonial Railroad Policy in Africa. Published by Wilhelm Süsserott, Berlin 1907 (online) .
- Wolfgang Lauber (Ed.): German Architecture in Togo 1884–1914 / L'Architecture allemande au Togo 1884–1914 . Karl Krämer Verlag, Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-7828-4017-8 .
- Helmut Schroeter, Roel Ramaer: The railways in the once German protected areas. Then and now. Röhr-Verlag, Krefeld 1993, ISBN 3-88490-184-2 .
- Peter Sebald: Togo 1884-1914 - A history of the German "model colony" based on official sources. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-05-000248-4 .
Web links
- Leo de Haan: The colonial development of the German protected area Togo in spatial perspective (pdf; 1.3 MB). In: Geography. Archive fo scientific geography 37, 1983, pp. 127-137. ISSN 0014-0015
Individual evidence
- ^ German Historical Museum: 1871-1914 - The German Colony Togo.
- ↑ Bapio Rosaire Barna: The carrier system in Togo before the railway construction, in: Rev. CAMES , Series B, No. 1, 1999, pp. 52–63. ( Article as pdf )
- ↑ Sebald, p. 333.
- ↑ Baltzer, p. 62.
- ↑ Sebald, p. 338.
- ↑ Hans Peter Hahn: Railways in Togo - Between colonial ideology and historical reality , in: Spectrum , No. 1, 2004, pp. 48–52.
- ↑ Schroeter / Ramaer, p. 103.
- ↑ Schroeter / Ramaer, p. 103.
- ↑ Sebald.
- ↑ Lauber, pp. 122–127.
- ↑ Hannes Schneider: The railways in the former German protected areas in Africa (PDF; 725 kB). German Railway Museum - Balingen.
- ↑ Sebald, p. 337.
- ^ Ferdinand Rhadern: Togo's struggle for existence in war and peace. ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (pdf; approx. 1.76 MB)
- ↑ Schroeter / Ramaer, p. 109
- ↑ Schroeter / Ramaer, p. 109
- ↑ Lauber, p. 24.
- ↑ Schroeter / Ramaer, p. 112f.
- ↑ Schroeter / Ramaer, p. 111ff.
- ↑ Lauber, p. 50.
- ↑ Lauber, p. 124.
- ↑ Togo. on: Fahrplancenter.com
- ↑ Schroeter / Ramaer, p. 115.
- ↑ Jean-Louis Chaléard, Chantal Chanson-Jabeur, Chantal Béranger: Le chemin de fer en Afrique . Éditions Karthala, Prodig et Sedet 2006, p. 22, ISBN 2-84586-643-7
