Malawi Railways
The railway company Malawi Railways was the state railway company in Malawi until 1999 .
history
Malawi Railways had a rail network of 797 kilometers in Cape Gauge . Almost all lines are single-track to this day and have been developed for axle loads of 15 t. In 1984 Malawi Railways had 53 diesel locomotives , 41 passenger cars and 888 freight cars of various types.
Malawi Railways' routes are all in the southern half of the country. The line begins in Mchinji , crosses a high plateau (1,200 m), reaches the capital Lilongwe , then descends to Chipoka on Lake Malawi (474 m) to the port and on to Nkaya . There a route branches off to the border town of Nayuchi and on to the Mozambican deep-sea port Nacala . The other route leads via Blantyre , Bangula , Nsanje and from the border to the Mozambican port of Beira .
With Canadian development aid , Malawi built the 170-kilometer connection between Nkaya and Cuamba on the Mozambican route Nacala- Lichinga in the 1970s in order to be able to reach the Mozambican deep-sea port Nacala.
Malawi Railways was privatized on December 1, 1999 and was subsequently operated by the Railroad Development Corporation in Pittsburgh , USA , which operated various short routes in several countries. Operation has been carried out by the Mozambican investor group Insitec since 2008 .
Data
- Greatest slope: 2.27%
- Rail weight: 40.3 kg / m
- Distance between thresholds: 0.7 m
- Smallest curve radius: 120 m
- Maximum train length: 485 m, 120 axles (in a few places 240 m, 72 axles)
See also
Web links
- Historical photos of Malawi Railways ( Memento from January 7, 2007 in the Internet Archive )