East African Railways
The East African Railways ( EAR ) were a joint railway company of Kenya , Uganda and Tanzania .
history
On May 1, 1948, the two railway companies Kenya and Uganda Railway and Harbors (KUR & H) and Tanganyika Railway and Port Services were merged to form the East African Railways and Harbors Administration (EAR & H) and after independence ( Tanganjika : 1961; Uganda : 1962 ; Kenya : 1963) renamed East African Railways (EAR) in 1969 . After the customs and economic union between Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania broke up in 1977 due to the widely divergent political and economic systems, the joint railway administration and with it the East African Railways were dissolved. The part of the joint railway that was on Ugandan territory was renamed Uganda Railway Cooperation (URC), the one that was on Kenyan territory was renamed Kenya Railways (KR), and the one in Tanzania was Tanzania Railways Corporation (TRC).
network
There were various reasons for the merger of the rail systems. Since the end of the First World War , all three areas - albeit with different legal status - were under the sovereignty of Great Britain . Since the railways of all three countries were built in meter gauge and - after the two independent networks in Tanzania were connected in 1963 - also passable throughout. This allowed the rolling stock to be freely used everywhere.
The three main routes of the East African Railways all ran from the coast to the hinterland, two connected the Indian Ocean with the Great Lakes in the Great African Rift Valley in the hinterland:
- Uganda Railway : Mombasa - Lake Victoria
- Usambara Railway
- Tanganyika Railway : Dar es Salaam - Lake Tanganyika
A number of other routes branched off from these routes.
The Southern Province Railway in southern Tanzania was added in 1952 as a non-system island operation with a gauge of 610 mm . However, it was shut down in 1963.
vehicles
The class 59 steam locomotives were the largest meter-gauge locomotives ever.
literature
- Neil Robinson: World Rail Atlas and historical summary. Vol. 7: North, East and Central Africa. World Rail Atlas Ltd., 2009. ISBN 978-954-92184-3-5 , pp. 41-43 and 78-80.
