The Benguela Railway () is a Cape gauge railway line that runs through Angola from west to east, being the largest and most important railway line in the country. It also connects to Tenke in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and to the Cape to Cairo Railway (connecting the city of Kindu (DRC) to the city of Port Elizabeth in South Africa).

The line terminates at the port of Lobito on the Atlantic coast, from where Angola exports a wide variety of products, including minerals (from the Copperbelt region), food, industrial components and livestock.

The section from Lobito to Luau is run by the Empresa do Caminho de Ferro de Benguela-E.P. It crosses the Luao River, which lies on the border, to Dilolo (DRC). From there to Tenke, the railway is operated by the Société nationale des Chemins de fer du Congo.

Specifications

The railway is Cape gauge, , which is used by most mainline railways in southern Africa. The maximum design speed is 90 km per hour. The design capacity is 20 million tons of cargo and 4 million passengers per year. There are 67 stations and 42 bridges along the route of the railway.

The highest point on the railway is .

Equipment

Locomotives

{| class="wikitable"

|-

! Type !! Manufacturer !! Notes !! Source

|-

| CKD8F || CNR Dalian, Dalian, China || None serviceable || 15 ordered in 2012

|-

| C30ACi || GE Transportation, Erie, Pennsylvania, U.S. || 35 in freight service, 10 in passenger service || 100 ordered for 2016–2019 delivery; 45 to CFB

|}

History

The railway line roughly follows old trade routes between the ancient trading centre of Benguela and its hinterland of the Bié plateau. In 1899, the Portuguese government initiated the construction of the railway to give access to the central Angolan plateau and the mineral wealth of the then Congo Free State. A concession, running for 99 years, was granted to Sir Robert Williams on 28 November 1902. His Benguela Railway Company took over the construction which commenced on 1 March 1903. Messrs Pauling & Co. and Messrs Griffiths & Co were contracted to build sections of the railway. By 1914, when World War I started, had been completed. Construction was halted until 1920 after which the railway's connection to Luau at the border to the Belgian Congo was completed in 1929. The primary purpose was to facilitate export trade, while "the domestic Angolan traffic would be of secondary importance." The railway reached an operational peak in 1973 when it transported 3.3 million tons of cargo, generated freight revenues of $30 million, and had 14,000 employees.

Steam locomotives outnumbered diesels as late as 1987.

When the 99-year concession expired in 2001, only remained in service, along the coast from Benguela to Lobito.

Rehabilitation and extension

The railway was 90% owned by Tanganyika Concessions (Tanks), a London-based holding company. Société Générale de Belgique purchased a minority share in Tanks in 1923 and acquired a controlling interest in 1981. The Belgian company remained the controlling owner of the railway when the concession expired in 2001, at which point ownership of the railway passed to the Angolan government.

After the Angolan Civil War ended in 2002, the railway was reconstructed between 2006 and 2014 by the China Railway Construction Corporation at a cost of $1.83 billion. The rebuilt railway was formally inaugurated in February 2015.

On 5 March 2018, ore transport was restarted from the Tenke Fungurume Mine, in the DRC, from where copper and cobalt are extracted, and the cargo transported to the port of Lobito. From that date the railway went into full operation, connecting the city of Tenke to the city of Lobito. The project includes eleven bridges and eight railway stations and construction began in January 2026, expected to take five years.

Lobito Atlantic Railway

On 4 July 2023, the Lobito Atlantic Railway company secured a 30-year concession for railway services. This joint venture involved Trafigura, a Singapore-based company, Mota-Engil, headquartered in Portugal, and Vecturis SA, a Belgium-based rail operator. The concession agreement encompassed the entire 1,300km railway line in Angola, extending to the 400km line into the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) (up to Kolwezi), and also includes any potential service extensions in Zambia. To support their operations, the company committed to investing in Angola and up to in the DRC.

The awarding of the concessions took place in the presence of Presidents João Lourenço of Angola, Félix Tshisekedi of the DRC, and Hakainde Hichilema of Zambia.

Expected to operate at least 1555 wagons and 30 locomotives in Angola, an initial 275 wagons were ordered by contract from South Africa in June 2024. Operations launched at the LAR mineral terminal at the Port of Lobito the following month, with the docking of MV Lindsaylou, a bulk cargo vessel, on 12 July 2024, with cargo later transferred to train cars to journey to the DRC.

Accidents

In the Tolunda rail accident on 22 September 1994, damaged brakes caused a train to plunge into a canyon, killing 300.

See also

  • Lobito Corridor
  • Congo Railway Company
  • Luanda Railway
  • Moçâmedes Railway
  • Rail transport in Angola
  • History of rail transport#Africa
  • History of rail transport in Angola

References

Further reading

  • Benguela Railway Company. (1929). A brief history of the Benguela railway, describing its construction through Angola, Portuguese West Africa, and the important role it is destined to play in the development of Southern and Central Africa. London: Benguela Railway Company.
  • Early History
  • BBC report Lifeline to Angola's future
  • BBC report Looking back down the line
  • Unofficial timetable of passenger trains (Fahrplancenter)
  • BBC2 footage of Benguela Railway from 'The Chinese are coming'
  • TANKS archive, University of Manchester Library
  • Angola: U.S. and EU Praise Angola's Commitment to Lobito Corridor As of 9 September 2023.