Africa – Page 38
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NewsLiberian ore line to spur Guinea revival
AFRICA: A revival of passenger and general freight services on the 662 km Chemins de fer de Guinée line is among commitments the BSG Resources (Guinea) Ltd mining joint venture has made in return for permission from the governments of Guinea and Liberia to build a new iron ore export ...
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NewsMajor rehabilitation gets underway
DR CONGO: Belgium-based African rail operator Vecturis is assisting with an ambitious World Bank supported project to rehabilitate the Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Congolais network. The project was officially launched by President Joseph Kabila last November. Work planned for 2010 includes renewal of track between Tenke and Kisanfu ...
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NewsFirst GE locomotives arrive in Nigeria
NIGERIA: The first five of 25 GE Transportation diesel locomotives have been delivered to Nigerian Railway Corp, the supplier announced on February 5. The rest will arrive in the second half of the year. The order for the C25 EMPD locomotives to haul both freight and passenger trains was placed ...
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NewsSena Line trains return to Moatize
MOZAMBIQUE: The first train in more than two decades reached Moatize in the Tete province of western Mozambique on January 30. The train was received by members of the provincial and district governments and a large crowd of local residents. Moatize District Administrator Adelino Andissene said that the rehabilitated Sena ...
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NewsMan eating lions - not (as) many dead
KENYA: Lieutenant-Colonel John H Patterson attributed the deaths of 135 people to the ‘man-eaters of Tsavo’, a pair of lions which terrorised railway construction workers in Kenya in 1898. The Uganda Railway hired Patterson to hunt down the lions, but thought the number of deaths was more like 28. Now ...
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NewsMoatize coal link funded
MOZAMBIQUE: Construction of a second rail link into the Moatize coalfield is expected to get underway before the end of this year, following the announcement of a US$500m package of international funding put together by the government to support local investors. Transport Minister Paulo Zucula says funding from the Dutch ...
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NewsGrand designs from Ethiopian Railway Corp
ETHIOPIA: Dr Getachew Betru is a man with a vision. As Director of the Ethiopian Railway Corp, he has been charged by the country’s government with planning and developing a 5 000 km standard-gauge rail network over the next seven years. Through his business at GBA Consultancy, Dr Betru ...
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NewsAbuja backs concessioning strategy
NIGERIA: After more than two decades of abortive attempts to patch up or reconstruct NRC’s ailing 1 067 mm gauge rail network, the government is now looking to hand the whole lot to the private sector. According to Transport Minister Alhaji Ibrahim Bio, legislation is being prepared that will pave ...
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NewsGE to supply locomotives to Nigeria
NIGERIA: GE Transportation and the Federal Ministry of Transportation announced the signing of a letter of intent covering the supply of 25 diesel locomotives on May 12. The C25 EMPD six-axle locomotives will be built by GE Transportation South America at Contagem in Brazil, with 12-cylinder 7FDL 2 500 ...
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NewsNairobi commuter upgrade plan
KENYA: Kenya Railways signed a joint venture agreement with InfraCo on April 15 commissioning a two-year study into a major upgrading of commuter rail services in Nairobi. Implementation of the recommendations would take a further 18 months, for completion in 2012 when national rail concessionaire Rift Valley Railways loses the ...
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NewsDMUs shipped to Ghana
GHANA: Two diesel multiple-units built by CNR Tangshan Railway Vehicle Co for Accra - Tema commuter services were shipped from the Chinese port of Tianjin at the end of last month. The 1 067 mm gauge DMUs are expected to be cheaper to operate and capable of more intensive ...
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NewsPassenger services in Botswana to end
BOTSWANA: Botswana Railways' passenger service is to be suspended with effect from April 1, the Ministry of Works & Transport announced on February 25. The overnight train between Francistown and Lobatse accounts for less than 10% of BR's operating revenues, and loses P30m a year which has until now been ...
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NewsIntercontinental Bridge of the Horns proposed
RED SEA: Ambitious proposals have been revealed for a bridge across the Bab al-Mandib, or Gate of Tears, between Djibouti and Yemen. The US$20bn Bridge of the Horns would be 28·5 km long, with three 2·7 km suspension spans, the longest in the world. It would carry ...
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NewsAfrica's megacity needs an urban rail backbone
LAGOS: After many years of talk and aborted proposals, plans for a diesel light rail network are finally taking shape in Nigeria's largest city.
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Sudan - Uganda link
AFRICA: The transport ministers of Uganda and Sudan signed a memorandum of understanding at the end of August establishing a Joint Ministerial Transport Commission to implement road upgrading and the construction of a 920 km rail link. The line will run from the Ugandan network at Gulu, via Nimule and ...
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NewsManagement changes in the Rift Valley
EAST AFRICA: Following persistent criticism from the Ugandan and Kenyan governments over the performance of the 2 350 km Kenya - Uganda rail network following the launch of a 25-year operating concession last year, the Rift Valley Railways consortium announced on August 4 that it was changing its senior management. ...
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NewsA long haul on the Lunatic Express
KENYA: Barely 18 months after the Rift Valley Railways consortium finally took control of the 900 km Kenya-Uganda railway on November 1 2006, pressure is growing for the 25-year concession to be cancelled. RVR is clearly having a tough time, with the railway linking Mombasa with Nairobi and Kampala having ...
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Ambitious vision in East Africa
AFRICA: Following closely on the aborted multi-billion-dollar scheme to replace Nigeria's dilapidated 1 067 mm gauge railway with a new standard-gauge network, the East African Community has announced a 'master plan' to do something similar with the metre-gauge lines in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. According to Magaga Alot from the ...
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Africa miners in the railway market
AFRICA: As two European companies start work on short-term contracts to rescue the existing railway networks in the Democractic Republic of Congo, word reaches us of ambitious plans to build more than 3 000 km of new railway in that country, together with further spending on roads, hospitals and hydro-electric ...