Chemin de fer Congo-Océan

Chemin de fer Congo-Océan
Brazzaville Station 1932
map
Route length:	510 km
Gauge :	1067 mm ( cape track )

The Congo – Ocean Railway (CFCO, from French: Chemin de fer Congo-Océan ) is a 510 km long railway in the Republic of the Congo , which connects the port of Pointe-Noire on the Atlantic Ocean with Brazzaville on the Congo .

history

The Congo – Ocean Railway was built by the French colonial administration between 1921 and 1934.

The route was built by the Batignolles company , and the cost of (local) human lives was extremely high.

Passenger traffic was suspended in April 2002 due to attacks during the civil war, but resumed in January 2004.

COMILOG

In 1962 a private branch line was built in Mongo-Bélo to Mbinda near the border with Gabon , with a connection to the 76 km long COMILOG material ropeway . Manganese ore from the mines operated by COMILOG ( Compagnie Miniere de l'Ogooue SA ) in Gabon was thus carried to Pointe-Noire. The cable car was closed in 1986 after neighboring Gabon built its own railway. The branch line went to the CFCO and is still in operation.

Bypass route

After the commissioning of the new COMILOG line, freight traffic related to the transport of manganese rose from 19,000 tons in 1962 to 2,200,000 tons in 1970. During the same period, timber traffic increased steadily and passenger traffic increased between 1962 and 1970 seven times. Crossing the Mayombe massif requires the use of three or four locomotives to pull heavy trains.

The deterioration of the network meant that derailments became more frequent and the speed became slower and slower. Investments became necessary. Several options were considered for crossing the Mayombe. In 1973 the project of a new route, known as the "south variant" between the stations Billinga and Dolisie , was chosen. In 1975 the Astaldi-Holzman-Fougerolles Group (ASHFO) was selected for the civil engineering project to build 91 kilometers of new single-track line with twelve bridges and six tunnels. The cost of the project should be CFAF 33 billion; the funding was completed on December 17, 1975.

At the beginning of 1976, the ASHFO group began with the building installations and on September 25, 1976 the actual work. After a command from the front for the liberation of the Cabinda enclave attacked the construction site at km 65 on January 15, 1977 , killing 12 people and kidnapping three engineers, ASHFO stopped work. The three hostages were quickly released after paying a ransom.

Under an agreement between ATC and ASHFO, work resumed on March 10, 1977, but the cost of the work was revalued. The military ensured the safety of the workers. The work fell behind. Changes to the route became imperative for technical reasons, rockfalls hampered the progress of the work, and the number of structures was increased, resulting in costs of 75 billion CFA francs by 1980.

The last obstacle was the tunnel under the Bamba massif with a length of 4600 meters. The tunneling work began in December 1978 and lasted five years until the two tunnel boring teams met on July 5, 1983. The long construction period was due to floods, landslides and concrete cracks. The new line was inaugurated on August 15, 1985. The Republic of the Congo has a modern railway line that allows trains to reach speeds of 80 km / h when crossing the Mayombe.

privatization

The CFCO is currently a state-owned company that is being privatized as part of commitments made by the Congolese government to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund . Several consortia were among the candidates, including Kongo-Rail (Bolloré, Maersk and SNCF) and the South African Sheltam Mvela.

In 2007, a Korean consortium led by the CMKC group signed a contract to extend over 1000 km to Ouésso and 500 km to Djambala . In return, the Koreans were granted a 30-year concession for gas , iron ore and tropical timber .

Accidents

Minor derailment of the A135D billiard rail bus on the CFCO route, 1941-1942

The line was the scene of some very serious railway accidents:

• On August 19, 1924, a bridge collapsed when a train passed over it. 29 people died.
• On September 6, 1991, a passenger train traveling from Pointe-Noire to Brazzaville collided with a freight train that was carrying wood. 133 people died.
  → Main article : Mvoungouti railway accident (1991)
• On April 6, 1996, near the Kiazi train station, an overloaded freight train with which many " stowaways " traveled derailed . Up to 100 people died.
• On January 10, 2001, two trains collided. At least 50 people died.
  → Main article : Mvoungouti railway accident (2001)
• On June 22, 2010, a passenger train derailed in a curve. Four cars crashed into a ravine. 76 people died and at least 745 were injured.
  → Main article : Bilinga railway accident

route

The route runs from Pointe-Noire to Brazzaville.

Train stations

Line Pointe-Noire - Brazzaville

• Pointe-Noire (1 m) - port - 0 km
• Hinda (34 m)
• Mvouti (287 m)
• Sisansinga
• Dolisie (formerly Loubomo ) (290 m)
• Mont Bélo (267 m) - junction to Mbinda
• Loudima (154 m)
• Nkayi (aka Kayes ) (181 m)
• Madingou (190 m)
• Loutété (232 m) - cement works
• Mindouli (366 m)
• Kibouende (413 m)
• Brazzaville (155 m) - capital - 512 km

COMILOG line

• Mont Bélo (267 m)
• Makabana (586 m)
  • Titi (615 m)
• Moutamba (473 m)
• Mossendjo (529 m)
• Mayoko (610 m) - possible iron ore mine
• Mbinda (625 m) - formerly the transfer station of the COMILOG cable car from Gabon

Planned

• Brazzaville - Ouésso (340 m) - 1000 km new line (under construction since 2008).
• Pointe-Noire - Djambala (622 m) - 500 km new line (under construction since 2008).
• Pointe-Noire - Zanaga (605 m) - 500 km new line.
• Brazzaville- Kinshasa bridge with connection to the Matadi-Kinshasa railway .

See also

Web links

• Chemin de fer Congo-Océan

literature

• André Gide, Voyage au Congo (1926).
• Albert Londres, Terre d'Ébène (1929).
• Gilles Sautter, Notes sur la construction du chemin de fer Congo-Océan (1921-1934), In: Cahiers d'études africaines 7: 219-299 (1967).
• Jane's World Railways 69/70, pages 542/543.

Remarks

1. ^ The source, Peter WB Semmens: Catastrophes on rails. A worldwide documentation. Transpress, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-344-71030-3 , p. 75, is an English-language text translated into German. He calls the bridge "Paporah Bridge". The exact location of the accident could not be identified on the basis of this information.

credentials

1. ^ Gide, André: Voyage au Congo
2. ↑ Complete section after: Sennen Andriamirado and Celestin Monga: Le nouveau Congo-Océan dans la traversée du Mayombe, 1986.
3. ^ Korean Consortium
4. ^ Peter WB Semmens: Catastrophes on rails. A worldwide documentation. Transpress, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-344-71030-3 , p. 75.
5. ^ NN: Background: Serious rail accidents in Africa . In: RP Online - Panorama.
6. ^ The Times Atlas of the World, 2007, p88
7. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original dated August 2, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
8. ^ Ouésso railway
9. ↑ Korea.net
10. ↑ RMT ( Memento of the original from July 14, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
11. ↑ Djambala railway ( Memento of the original from September 13, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
12. ^ Reuters
13. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from May 19, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.