Rail transport in Zambia

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Map of Zambia
Combined rail and road bridge over the Zambezi at Victoria Falls

The rail transport in Zambia plays an important role, especially in freight transport in the country. Two railway companies operate in Zambia . The route length is a total of 2157 kilometers. All routes are in Cape gauge, single-track and not electrified.

geography

Zambia is a landlocked country . The distances to the sea ports are over 2000 kilometers. Large parts of the country lie in a 1000 to 1400 meter high plateau . From the north, a large area of ​​the Democratic Republic of the Congo protrudes into the Zambian national territory. This is where the Copperbelt is located , in which copper ores are extracted and transported by rail. The Zambezi, one of the widest rivers in Africa, flows on the southern border . It is the border river to Namibia , Botswana and Zimbabwe and is crossed by a railway line on a bridge near Victoria Falls . Other neighboring countries are Angola , Tanzania , Mozambique and Malawi . Zambia has no rail connection with Angola, Namibia, Botswana, Mozambique and Malawi.

history

The construction of the railway in what was then the British Northern Rhodesia was promoted mainly by Cecil Rhodes . In 1899 the public limited company of the Rhodesian Railways was founded. The route was mostly built from south to north. In 1905 the Zambezi Bridge at Victoria Falls was completed, and the Livingstone - Kalomo section opened in the same year . In 1906 Broken Hill (today Kabwe ) was reached, in 1909 the Belgian-Congo border at Sakania and thus the connection to the Congolese railway network. The line was part of the projected Cape Town – Cairo line . The Cape Gauge , which is common in southern Africa, was chosen as the gauge . In 1916 the Kalomo – Broken Hill section was operated by the Maschonaland Railway Company. In 1929 the Benguela Railway was completed so that the Atlantic port of Benguela could be reached. Additional routes were built in Zambia. In the Copperbelt, a connection from Ndola via Kitwe to Chingola was established almost parallel to the route in the Belgian Congo . 1923 to 1924 the Zambezi Sawmills Railway - later Mulobezi Railway - was built as a private railway line for the removal of teak from Mulobezi and north of it from Kataba . It had several branches and was also operated as a passenger service to Kataba. In addition, the Choma - Masuku line in the south-west of the country and three short branch lines in the Copperbelt that lead to Chilabombwe , Mufulira and Luanshya were created .

Up until the mid-1960s, sleeping car trains ran from Ndola via Livingstone to Bulawayo in what was then Southern Rhodesia. In 1964, Northern Rhodesia became independent as Zambia. The railway company was split up, the part belonging to Zambia called Zambia Railways . Traffic between Zambia and Southern Rhodesia - which was called Rhodesia until 1979 - was interrupted until the establishment of the state of Zimbabwe in 1980.

The Dar es Salaam - Kapiri Mposhi line of the Tanzania Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA) was built under Chinese management and opened in 1976. The aim was to connect Zambia to the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam on the Indian Ocean and thus to reduce Zambia's economic dependence on South Africa , which was governed by apartheid at the time, and Rhodesia, which was also ruled by a white minority. The line was also built in Kapspur and connected to the existing network in Kapiri Mposhi. 891 kilometers of the route are in Zambia. This route forms its own railway company and is legally independent from the rest of the network. In 1986 a route through the north of South Africa and Swaziland was completed, which facilitated the transport of goods from Zambia to the South African ports of Durban and Richards Bay .

Diesel locomotive 01-266 in Lusaka station (2017)

In 2003 the investor group NLPI, which primarily represents South African companies, was granted the concession to operate Zambia Railways for 20 years. Under the name Railway Systems of Zambia (RSZ) it operated the routes of the Zambia Railways. In 2012, however, the concession was revoked and Zambia Railways took over operations again.

present

The two main routes are mainly used for freight traffic. 55–60 percent of freight traffic is generated in the Copperbelt, around 25–30 percent in the Lusaka area .

TAZARA and Zambia Railways Limited

DE 3007 of TAZARA in New Kapiri Mposhi (2017)

Two pairs of passenger trains run weekly on the TAZARA route to Dar es Salaam and one to Nakonde in Eastern Zambia. Zambia Railways operates four pairs of passenger trains per week between Kitwe and Livingstone within the country . Twice a week in the south of the country there is a passenger train with goods transport from Livingstone to Mulobezi and back. The train is pulled by a diesel locomotive and, in addition to the passenger carriages, also carries various freight wagons that are used, among other things, to transport teak from the Mulobezi area. ZR also operates passenger traffic on the Ngwerere - Lilayi commuter route .

Special train service

156 (Class10) and 204 (Class12) at Bushtracks Depot Livingstone (2017)

On the Zambian and Zimbabwean sides, Bushtracks Africa operates a steam locomotive-hauled tourist train for sunset to Victoria Falls Bridge , which runs from Livingstone on Wednesdays and Saturdays and with locomotive no. 156 or No. 204 is covered or leaves Victoria Falls on Tuesdays and Fridays and is covered with Garratt 14A 512.

Occasionally, the Pride of Africa luxury train comes from South Africa via Victoria Falls and Kapiri Mposhi to Dar es Salaam and back. There are also occasional special trains from Zambia Railways called The Golden Jubilee Train.

Projects

Several new lines are planned, including the connection from Mchinji in Malawi to Mpika in eastern Zambia on the TAZARA line. The route of the cross-border section Mchinji– Chipata has been completed. The aim is to improve the connection of Zambia to the ports on the Indian Ocean, in particular Beira and Nacala in Mozambique.

A second project is the construction of a line ( North-Western Railway Line ) from Chingola in the Copperbelt in the northwestern province of Zambia to Lumwana , in the vicinity of which further copper ore deposits have been discovered. There are also plans to extend the line to the Benguela Railway in Angola so that transit traffic through the Democratic Republic of the Congo would be eliminated. The route in the second construction phase with the crossing of the Zambian-Angolan border at Jimbe has not yet been precisely determined. Your end point should be in the port of Luanda or, according to other information, in the port of Lobito .

literature

  • Franz Baltzer : The colonial railways with a special focus on Africa. Göschen, Berlin et al. 1916, pp. 139-147 (reprint. Reprint-Verlag Leipzig, Holzminden 2007, ISBN 978-3-8262-0233-9 ).
  • Matthias Hille: On the Cape's trail through the bush. Fern-Express, issue 4/2017, pp. 23–29.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Information on indexmundi.com (English), accessed on August 12, 2010
  2. ^ A b Franz Baltzer: The colonial railways - with special consideration of Africa . Reprint Verlag, Leipzig, ISBN 978-3-8262-0233-9 , pp. 139-147
  3. ↑ NLPI website on Railway Systems of Zambia (RSZ) ( Memento of December 31, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (English), accessed on August 13, 2010
  4. ↑ ZRL takes charge as Zambian concession revoked. railwaygazette.com, September 13, 2012, accessed January 21, 2016
  5. ↑ Data on Zambia Railways ( Memento from September 16, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
  6. ↑ a b c d ZR passenger trains , accessed on May 26, 2017
  7. ^ Zambia to build new US $ 500 million rail line. at africanreview on September 24, 2012, accessed on November 24, 2013
  8. ↑ Zambian North-West Railway ( memento of December 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) at railwaysafrica.com on May 31, 2011 (English), accessed on November 24, 2013
  9. ^ The Post: Government to construct Solwezi-Walvis Bay railway link . Message from August 19, 2011 from The Post on www.trademarksa.org ( Memento of the original from January 27, 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. (English) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.trademarksa.org
  10. ↑ Times of Zambia: Govt's move on RSZ issue bold . News from the Times of Zambia on September 11, 2012 on www.ukzambians.co.uk ( Memento of the original from October 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / ukzambians.co.uk