Ethiopia-Djibouti rail opens

[george matthews]

A Chinese built electrified rail line has opened from the Red Sea to Addis Abeba. It is standard gauge - replacing the metre gauge line of colonial days.

(BBC tv news)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addis_Aba ... ti_Railway

https://www.google.co.uk/?client=safari ... ti+railway

[johnthefireman]

A lot of press reports rather annoyingly refer to it as Africa's first electric railway (eg Chinese locomotives run along Africa's 1st electric railway). This is obviously incorrect as South Africa has had electric railways for yonks. I suppose one can say it is Africa's first international railway, crossing national borders.

[george matthews]

I do wonder whether Ethiopia can maintain a reliable electric line through rather wild country.

[johnthefireman]

On the other hand, Ethiopia has an ever-increasing supply of hydroelectric power.

[george matthews]

On the other hand, Ethiopia has an ever-increasing supply of hydroelectric power.

That's true but can they maintain the security of power lines in what is rather undeveloped country, quite a lot of it sparsely inhabited?

Large parts of that rail line pass through semi-desert.

And there are various guerrilla groups, especially Somalis.

[johnthefireman]

Yes, and of course even South Africa has difficulty maintaining the power supply.

[george matthews]

The longer term possibilities include the potential of a standard gauge line to Kenya, to connect with the SG line now being built from Mombasa to Rwanda.

And maybe north from Uganda into South Sudan.

[philipmartin]

Yes, and of course even South Africa has difficulty maintaining the power supply.

Also, South Africa's rolling stck gets torched, and train crews threatened, on a regular basis, if I remember correctly. I hope conditions are better in Etheopia. Here's a link to a story and video of a news crew being mugged in SA. http://www.latimes.com/world/africa/la- ... story.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[CLamb]

How is this being paid for? Are the Chinese getting some trade concessions in return?

[kato]

The route is assumed to become profitable rather fast, given almost all import-export trade of Ethiopia goes through Djibouti and currently still entirely relies on trucking.

It goes beyond railways too, there's been massive investment (around 7 billion USD) into Djibouti's port as well - where currently 70% of all goods handled go to or come from Ethiopia. There's some hints that longterm planned development may go in the direction of establishing (cheap labour...) manufacturing centers in Ethiopia for exports to the Middle East, and the Chinese are pretty much buying into this future business by establishing the infrastructure for it and upfronting the money through their state foreign investment bank.

[george matthews]

The route is assumed to become profitable rather fast, given almost all import-export trade of Ethiopia goes through Djibouti and currently still entirely relies on trucking.

But wasn't the metre gauge line still functioning?

[johnthefireman]

But wasn't the metre gauge line still functioning?

It seems to me that a number of African countries which only have a single railway route which is so decrepit that it really needs to be rebuilt anyway, have chosen to build a new one in standard gauge rather than try to rehabilitate the old metre or cape gauge lines. This probably works out cheaper in the long run, allows access to off-the-shelf locos, rolling stock and other equipment (including second hand kit) much more easily than the smaller gauges do, and also allows for the possibility of inter-operability between nations (which is difficult at the moment due to the different gauges in use). I think it is a reasonable strategy.

South Africa is the exception, as they already have such a large and well-developed rail network which is inter-operable with other southern African countries, up to and including Tanzania, so there is no point in replacing it with standard gauge except for the odd stand-alone line such as Gautrain.

[george matthews]

I was merely questioning "trucking" as I had thought the metre gauge line had still been working. But yes, the gradual regauging is probably the best long term strategy. I do wonder whether the SG routes may come under the control of the Chinese.

[kato]

The meter-gauge line was badly damaged in the 1977 Ogaden war and continued seeing attacks by Ogaden rebel groups afterwards. It never really recovered from that beyond being restored to operational state. About a decade ago there were plans to restore the line with EU money and a South-African operating company, which folded a few years later. Passenger services on the line between Dire Dawa and Addis Abeba ceased in 2008, between Dire Dawa and Djibouti there were no passenger trains between 2010 and 2013 due to the abysmal state of the line (and due to delays in maintenance by the Italian company contracted for it).

Before operations ceased, the railway transported around 215,000 tons and 650,000 passengers per year. This amounted to only 5% of all traffic between the end points. Before the destruction caused by the Ogaden war the railway transported about twice those numbers (with the much lower traffic amounts of the 70s that's rather impressive). The EU-sponsored project estimated the meter-gauge line could, with more modern locos and some crossings upgraded, transport up to 1.5 million tons per year - up to 30% of all freight traffic on the route; with a replacement of 200 km tracks it could have been upgraded to carry twice that. The Chinese project built now is supposedly rated for up to 20 million tons freight per year.

[george matthews]

The meter-gauge line was badly damaged in the 1977 Ogaden war and continued seeing attacks by Ogaden rebel groups afterwards. It never really recovered from that beyond being restored to operational state. About a decade ago there were plans to restore the line with EU money and a South-African operating company, which folded a few years later. Passenger services on the line between Dire Dawa and Addis Abeba ceased in 2008, between Dire Dawa and Djibouti there were no passenger trains between 2010 and 2013 due to the abysmal state of the line (and due to delays in maintenance by the Italian company contracted for it).

Before operations ceased, the railway transported around 215,000 tons and 650,000 passengers per year. This amounted to only 5% of all traffic between the end points. Before the destruction caused by the Ogaden war the railway transported about twice those numbers (with the much lower traffic amounts of the 70s that's rather impressive). The EU-sponsored project estimated the meter-gauge line could, with more modern locos and some crossings upgraded, transport up to 1.5 million tons per year - up to 30% of all freight traffic on the route; with a replacement of 200 km tracks it could have been upgraded to carry twice that. The Chinese project built now is supposedly rated for up to 20 million tons freight per year.

That story makes me wonder whether the SG line will survive the potential attacks by the all too numerous rebel groups.