Ethiopian Rail Upgrade

[John Ashworth]

ETHIOPIAN RAIL UPGRADE

Posted on 26 June 2009 by Railways Africa Editor

According to the BBC’s Elizabeth Blunt, “a major project is under way to restore Ethiopia’s 100-year-old imperial railway, and there are plans to build a new national network.”

The existing 784km line to Djibouti from Addis Abeba was built by the French in the early days of the twentieth century. “French influences are everywhere, from the glazed canopies of the Addis Abeba railway station to the startling sight of the Ethiopian station staff in Dire Dawa talking to each other in French”.

The infrastructure is old and derailments on the scenic but steeply graded metre-gauge line currently average one per week, Blunt writes. “Crumbling embankments and decaying bridges limit the weight and speed of the trains.”

Currently the 473km section from Addis to Dire Dawa is closed while the track is relaid with 40kg per metre rails in place of 20kg. “A spectacular stretch of line, near the town of Metahara, where the track runs on a narrow causeway across a volcanic lake, has already been completed. Workers are strengthening bridges, consolidating embankments, and casting 25,000 concrete sleepers to replace the lightweight metal sleepers which were there before. Meanwhile, a little desultory traffic still runs on the lower stretch of the line from Dire Dawa to Djibouti - a trainload of fruit and vegetables once a week for sale in Djibouti, coffee for export, trainloads of live camels destined for the meat markets of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.”