A major EU-funded project is under way to restore Ethiopias 100-year-old imperial railway from the capital Addis Ababa to the vital port in neighbouring Djibouti, writes BBC online Monday.
The French built it for the Emperor Menelik in the early 1900s. Like so many rail systems, the Ethiopia-Djibouti railway was neglected for years in favour of road transport, but the loss of its main ports when Eritrea gained independence left Ethiopia totally dependent on Djibouti for an outlet to the sea.
The country needed the railway more than ever, but the line was in no fit state for intensive use. The system is narrow, one metre gauge, with steep gradients on the long haul up from sea level to the Ethiopian highlands.
Some stretches of track are more than a century old; crumbling embankments and decaying bridges limit the weight and speed of the trains. Recently it has been averaging one derailment a week, and attracting so little traffic that for a time staff frequently went unpaid.
But now, with European Union support, a major restoration project is under way. Almost a third of the track is being re-laid, using heavier weight rails – 40 kg per metre instead of the 20 kg rails still in use on some stretches of the line.
The section from Addis Ababa to Dire Dawa has been closed while the work is going on. 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 (sveller) to replace the lightweight metal sleepers which were there before.
