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Rail transport in Sudan

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Railways in Sudan

Sudan has 4,725 kilometers of narrow-gauge, single-track railways. The main line runs from Wadi Halfa on the Egyptian border to Khartoum and southwest to El-Obeid via Sennar and Kosti, with extensions to Nyala in Southern Darfur and Wau in Western Bahr al Ghazal, South Sudan. Other lines connect Atbara and Sennar with Port Sudan, and Sennar with Ad-Damazin. A 1,400-kilometer line serves the Al Jazirah cotton-growing region. There are plans to rehabilitate rail transport to reverse decades of neglect and declining efficiency.[1] Service on some lines may be interrupted during the rainy season.

Statistics

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As of 2022 the Sudan Railways Corporation maintains 4,578 km of 1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in) gauge rail.[2] The main line linking Khartoum to Port Sudan carries over two-thirds of Sudan's rail traffic.[3]

Sudan Railways

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Sudan Railways is Sudan's main railway system and is operated by the government-owned Sudan Railways Corporation (SRC), provides services to most of the country's production and consumption centers.[3] Rail dominated commercial transport in the early years of independent Sudan but competition from highways increased rapidly and by 2013, 90% of inland transport in Sudan was by road.[4] The main rail system was reorganised into two parts; the SRC which owned the physical assets of the Sudan Railways and the other part being a collection of private companies which organise the operation of the network. In 2013 10 private companies were reported to be running operations in different lines.[4][5]

History

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Railway station in northern Sudan

The history of rail transport in Sudan began in 1874[6] when the Khedive of Egypt Isma'il Pasha established a line from Wadi Halfa to Sarras about 54 km upstream on the east bank of the Nile, as a commercial undertaking.[7] The line did not prove to be commercially viable, and operations were stopped by the Governor-General Charles Gordon in 1878 to reduce expenditure. In 1884, the line was extended to Akasha on the Nile by the Nile Expedition, but was destroyed by the Ansar when the Anglo-Egyptian troops withdrew to Wadi Halfa.[6]

In 1884, during the Red Sea Expedition, John Aird & Co. constructed a 20-mile (32 km) line from Suakin on the Red Sea inland to Otau, but it was abandoned in 1885.[8] In May 1887, the Wadi Halfa-Saras line was extended again to Kerma, above the third cataract, to support the Anglo-Egyptian Dongola Expedition against the Mahdist State.[9] The line, which was poorly constructed and of little other use, was abandoned in 1905.[8][10][7]

The first segment of the present-day Sudan Railways, from Wadi Halfa to Abu Hamad on the Nile, was also a military undertaking. It was built by the British in the late 1890s, for use in General Herbert Kitchener's drive against the Mahdist State. During the campaign, the line was pushed to Atbara on the Nile in 1897 and, after the Battle of Omdurman in 1898, was continued to Khartoum, which it reached on the last day of 1899.[8] The line was built in the 1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in) gauge, the result of Kitchener's use of the rolling stock and rails of that gauge from the old line. That gauge became the standard for all later Sudanese mainline construction.[7]

The line opened a trade route from central Sudan through Egypt to the Mediterranean. The line became uneconomical due to the distance became uneconomic because of the distance and the need to ship things via boat down the Nile, so, in 1904, construction of a new line from Atbara to the Red Sea was undertaken, with the line being completed in October 1905.[8] In 1906, the new line reached the recently built Port Sudan to provide a direct connection between Khartoum and ocean-going transport.[7]

In 1911, a line was also constructed from Khartoum southward to Sennar within the cotton-growing region of Al Jazirah.[11] In February 1912, a westward continuation reached El-Obeid, then the country's second-largest city, and the center of gum arabic production.[8] In the north, a branch line was built from near Abu Hamad to Karima that tied the navigable stretch of the Nile between the fourth and third cataracts into the transport system. Traffic in this case, however, was largely inbound to towns along the river, a situation that still prevailed in 1990.[7]

In the 1920s, a spur of the railway was built from Hayya, a point on the main line 200 km southwest of Port Sudan, then extended south to the cotton-producing area near Kassala, the grain region of Al Qadarif and, finally, to a junction with the main line at Sennar. Much of the area's traffic, which formerly had passed through Khartoum, has since moved over that line directly to Port Sudan.[7]

The final phase of railway construction began in the 1950s.[12] It included extension of the western line to Nyala (1959) in Darfur Province, and a southwesterly branch to Wau (1961), southern Sudan's second largest city, located in Bahr el Ghazal. That essentially completed the Sudan Railways network, which totalled about 4,800 route km in 1990.[7] There were small later extensions from Abu Gabra to El Muglad (52 km in 1995), El Obeid to the El Obeid refinery (10 km), and El Ban to the Merowe Dam (10 km.).[13]

Railway tracks at Meroë
Rail construction timeline[14]
Route Years Length
Wadi Halfa-Abu Hamad 1897–1898 350 km
Abu Hamad-Atbara 1898 244 km
Atbara-Khartoum 1898–1900 313 km
Atbara-Port Sudan 1904–1906 474 km
Station No. 10-Karima 1905 222 km
Khartoum-Kosti-El Obeid 1909–1911 689 km
Hayya-Kassala 1923–1924 347 km
Kassala-Gedarif 1924–1928 218 km
Gedarif-Sennar 1928–1929 237 km
Sennar-Damazin 1953–1954 227 km
Aradeiba Junction-Babanusa 1956–1957 354 km
Babanusa-Nyala 1957–1959 335 km
Babanusa-Wau 1959–1962 444 km
Girba-Digiam 1962 70 km
Muglad-Abu Gabra 1995 52 km

Diesel traction

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Diesel locomotives at Kosti, Sudan in 2008

In the 1950s Sudan Railways began replacing their steam locomotives with diesel locomotives and by the early 1960s had replaced all of the trains on their main lines. Steam locomotives continued to be used by Sudan Railways on lines with lighter weight rails.[15][7] A number of South African diesel locomotives are in use in Sudan.

Decline

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Through the 1960s, rail had a practical monopoly on the transportation of goods to and from Sudan. Sudan Railways suffered losses in the early 1970s, though they briefly recovered following the acquisition of new diesel equipment in 1976 further losses occurred in the late 1970s. The losses were attributed to various factors including, inflation, the lack of spare parts, the company's headquarters being located in Atbara rather than in Khartoum, the continuation of certain lines having only light traffic.[15][7] Hassan Ahmed El Sheikh, a former secretary of a railway union in the Sudan blamed Gaafar Nimeiry's attempts to weaken unions (who had organised numerous strikes on the railway) by firing over 20,000 employees between 1975 and 1991. El Sheikh also blamed Omar al-Bashir who took office in 1989 and continued Nimeiry's anit-union policies.[16] The road system, although generally more expensive, was used increasingly for low-volume, high-value goods because it could deliver more rapidly—2 or 3 days from Port Sudan to Khartoum, compared with 7 or 8 days for express rail freight and up to two weeks for ordinary freight. In 1982, only one to two percent of freight and passenger trains arrived on time.[17] The gradual erosion of freight traffic was evident in the drop from more than 3 million tons carried annually at the beginning of the 1970s to about 2 million tons at the end of the decade. The 1980s also saw a steady erosion of tonnage as a result of a combination of inefficient management, union stubbornness, the failure of agricultural projects to meet production goals, a lack of spare parts and the continuing civil war. The bridge at Aweil was destroyed in the 1980s[7] and Wau was without rail access until 2010 and became part of South Sudan when it declared independence in 2011.[18] During the civil war in the south (1983–2005) military trains went as far as Aweil accompanied by large numbers of troops and militia, causing great disruption to civilians and humanitarian aid organisations along the railway line.[7]

Modernisation

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Efforts were made in the late 1970s and the 1980s to improve through laying heavier rails, repairing locomotives, purchasing new locomotives, modernizing signaling equipment, expanding training facilities, and improving repair facilities. Substantial assistance was given by foreign governments and organizations, including the European Development Fund, the AFESD, the International Development Association, the United Kingdom, France, China and Japan. Implementation of much of this work was hampered by political instability in the 1980s, debt, the lack of hard currency, the shortage of spare parts, and import controls.[19] Rail was estimated in mid-1989 to be operating at less than 20% of capacity. In 2015 the railways were said to have 60 trains available but the maximum speed they could travel was 40 km/h due to poor railway tracks.[20][21]

In 2015 al-Bashir promised to modernise and upgrade the Sudanese railways with Chinese funds and technical assistance[22] after years of poor administration and neglect.[20] However a 2016 article noted that many Chinese firms had given up dealing with Sudan because of sanctions and pressure from the US.[16]

In 2021 the government put forward a $640m programme to rehabilitate its rail system. The African Development Bank has offered a $75m grant towards the cost while China State Construction Engineering and several Gulf firms are reported to be interested in becoming involved with the project. The first phase of the project will be to carry out $17m of emergency repairs to lines that are in use. The second will be to renew abandoned lines, most of which are in the south of the country.[1]

Railways

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Gezira Light Railway

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The Gezira Light Railway, one of the largest light railways in Africa, evolved from tracks laid in the 1920s' construction of the canals for the Gezira Scheme. At the time, rail had about 135 route km of 2 ft (610 mm) narrow gauge track. As the size of the project area increased, the railway was extended and by the mid-1960s consisted of a complex system totalling 716 route km. Its primary purpose has been to serve the farm area by carrying cotton to ginneries and fertilizers, fuel, food, and other supplies to the villages in the area.[13] Operations usually have been suspended during the rainy season.

Tokar-Trinkitat Light Railway

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The Tokar - Trinkitat Light Railway

The Tokar-Trinkitat Light Railway was built in 1921 and 1922 at 600 mm (1 ft 11+5⁄8 in) narrow gauge and was 29 km long,[23] primarily used for the export of the cotton crop from Tokar. It used ex-War Department Light Railways rolling stock and Simplex locomotives. It was absorbed by Sudan Railways in 1933 and closed in 1952.[24]

Proposed Nyala-Chad extension

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In 2011 funds were reportedly obtained to construct an extension from Nyala to Chad[25] with financing to be obtained from China.[26] In 2012 a contract to build a rail line from the Chad–Sudan border to the capital of Chad, N'Djamena was also reported to be signed.[27] But in 2014 it was reported that although Sudan and Chad had agreed to stop supporting rebels in each other's countries, the US$2 billion project had still not been signed nor started.[28]

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In June 2020 the funding was approved to finance a $3.4m feasibility study into a standard-gauge rail link between Ethiopia and Sudan. Ethiopia is considering a 1,522 km line between Addis Ababa, Khartoum and Port Sudan on the Red Sea. The route has already been agreed by both governments. The two-year study will assess the railway's technical, economic, environmental and social challenges, including the possibility of procuring it as a public–private partnership.[29]

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A 250 km/h rail link from the Egyptian city of Aswan to Wadi Halfa in the north has been proposed.[30] The $2.5 million feasibility study was signed with Kuwaiti investment in April 2022, and would include a 6 km bridge across Lake Nasser.[31][32] A further standard-gauge extension from Halfa to Khartoum has been proposed to give travelers from there a one-seat ride to Alexandria.[33]

South Sudan independence

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Main article: Rail transport in South Sudan

After the Declaration of Independence of South Sudan in 2011, 248 km of the Babanousa-Wau line was no longer located within Sudan.

Specifications

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b "Sudan plans $640m scheme to bring rail network back into use". Global Construction Review. 22 July 2021. Archived from the original on 25 July 2021. Retrieved 25 July 2021.
  2. ^ "Sudan - 2.4 Sudan Railway Assessmen". Logistics Cluster. Archived from the original on 27 November 2023. Retrieved 27 November 2023.
  3. ^ a b "About Us". Sudan Railways. Archived from the original on 27 November 2023. Retrieved 27 November 2023.
  4. ^ a b Sudan: Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (Issues 13-318 of IMF Staff Country Reports). International Monetary Fund. Middle East and Central Asia Dept. 2013. pp. Section 210. ISBN 9781475598049.
  5. ^ "Sudan's transport system a key cog in economic development". Leading Edge Guides. 27 September 2016. Archived from the original on 18 April 2018. Retrieved 15 July 2015.
  6. ^ a b Morrice, H. A. (1949). "THE DEVELOPMENT OF SUDAN COMMUNICATIONS — Part I". Sudan Notes and Records. 30 (1): 13–14. ISSN 0375-2984 – via JSTOR.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k "Sudan Railways Corporation (SRC)". Institute of Developing Economies Japan External Trade Organization. 2007. Archived from the original on 5 November 2011. Retrieved 14 July 2010.
  8. ^ a b c d e "Sudan's rail and river transport". The Gunboat, Incorporating Melik Bulletin. London, UK: Melik Society: 33–38. January 2011. - extracts from Pinkney, Frederick George Augustus (1926). Sudan Government Railways and Steamers. Institution of Civil Engineers. Selected Engineering Papers. Vol. 35. UK: Institution of Civil Engineers. pp. 1–19. ASIN B0017DEERE.
  9. ^ Derek A. Welsby (January 2011). "The Wadi Halfa to Kerma railway". The Gunboat, Incorporating Melik Bulletin. London, UK: Melik Society: 31–32.
  10. ^ Gleichen, Edward, ed. (1905). The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan: A Compendium Prepared by Officers of the Sudan Government. Vol. 1. London, UK: His Majesty's Stationery Office. pp. 213–215. Retrieved 4 August 2015.
  11. ^ "History". Sudan Railways. Archived from the original on 27 November 2023. Retrieved 27 November 2023.
  12. ^ For an overview of the railway in 1952, see "Sudan Railways," in Railroad Magazine October 1952, at pp. 36-47. The article is illustrated with black and white photos of what was then a flourishing railroad.
  13. ^ a b Ali, Hamid Eltgani (2014). Darfur's Political Economy: A Quest for Development (Europa Country Perspectives). Routledge. p. 257. ISBN 9781317964643.
  14. ^ "Sudan Railways Facts and Figures 2007" (PDF). Sudan Railways Corporation. 2007. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-08-20. Retrieved 2017-07-15.
  15. ^ a b Fitzgerald, John (1977). Rail and road transport in the Sudan. College of Commerce and Business Administration, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
  16. ^ a b Foltyn, Simona (2016-11-14). "Riding the Nile train: could lifting US sanctions get Sudan's railway on track?". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2017-07-15.
  17. ^ Due, John F. (February 1983). "Trends in Rail Transport in Four African Countries Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania, Sudan (BEBR Faculty working paper No. 937)". College of Commerce and Business Administration, Bureau of Business and Economic Research. University of Illinois, US: 39–56. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  18. ^ Kone, Solomane, ed. (2013). "South Sudan: An Infrastructure Action Plan; Chapter 7.4.1 Current Status of the railways network" (PDF). African Development Bank Group. p. 192. Archived (PDF) from the original on 11 October 2017. Retrieved 15 July 2017.
  19. ^ "Sudan Railroads". Photius. 1991. Archived from the original on 2 December 2023. Retrieved 2 December 2023.
  20. ^ a b "Bashir vows to restore Sudan's railway network". The Sudan Tribune. Sudan. 5 April 2015. Archived from the original on 1 December 2020. Retrieved 4 August 2015.
  21. ^ Abdallah, Mohamed Nureldin (20 August 2013). "Getting Sudan's railways on track". Reuters. Sudan. Archived from the original on 5 September 2015. Retrieved 4 August 2015.
  22. ^ Timberlake, Ian (20 April 2014). "All aboard! Sudan's sleek new Nile Train a rarity". Yahoo! Finance. Archived from the original on 22 July 2020. Retrieved 4 August 2015.
  23. ^ Bisheshwar, Prasad (1963). "East African Campaign, 1940-41 (Chapter 2) ; Official History of the Indian Armed Forces In the Second World War". Ibiblio. Archived from the original on 17 September 2017. Retrieved 15 July 2017.
  24. ^ Gunston, Henry (2001). Narrow Gauge by the Sudanese Red Sea Coast; the Tokar - Trinkitat Light Railway and other small railways. Norfolk, UK: Plateway Press. ISBN 9781871980462.
  25. ^ "Prefeasibility Study for the Construction of a new Railway Line Nyala - Elgeneina – Adri (Chad border)". Sudan Railways Corporation. Archived from the original on 2015-09-06. Retrieved 2017-07-15.
  26. ^ a b Toby Collins (31 July 2011), "Sudan-Chad railway funds secured", www.sudantribune.com, Sudan Tribune, archived from the original on 9 June 2021, retrieved 13 January 2012
  27. ^ "Work to begin on Chad rail network", www.railwaygazette.com, Railway Gazette International, 13 January 2012, archived from the original on 14 January 2017, retrieved 13 January 2012
  28. ^ Otieno, Patrick (22 July 2014). "Sudan, Chad to build a railway at US$2b". Construction Review Online. Archived from the original on 3 August 2017. Retrieved 15 July 2017.
  29. ^ "Funding agreed for $3.4m study into Ethiopia–Sudan railway". Global Construction Review. 11 June 2020. Archived from the original on 26 July 2021. Retrieved 25 July 2021.
  30. ^ "Egypt Expands Railway Network to Include Sudan, Libya". Asharq AL-awsat. 18 January 2021. Archived from the original on 9 November 2022. Retrieved 5 July 2022.
  31. ^ "Egypt, Kuwait Fund sign $2.5m grant deal for railway project". Arab News. 9 May 2022. Archived from the original on 5 April 2023. Retrieved 25 July 2022.
  32. ^ "Egypt, Sudan connecting Khartoum with Cairo-Cape Town rail line". Arab News. 12 June 2021. Archived from the original on 25 May 2022. Retrieved 15 May 2022.
  33. ^ "Egypt and Sudan in talks to build new 900km-long railway line". Railway Technology. 9 April 2021. Archived from the original on 27 May 2022. Retrieved 25 May 2022.
  34. ^ "DLW locomotives for export to Sudan". Hindustan Times. 2005-07-11. Archived from the original on 2012-10-25.
  35. ^ "Rs. 80-crore target for railway spares export". The Hindu. Chennai, India. 2004-11-11. Archived from the original on 2005-03-12.
  36. ^ Singh, Animesh (2005-07-13). "Second batch of Indian locomotives for Sudan soon". Sudan Tribune. Archived from the original on 2021-06-08. Retrieved 2017-07-15.
  37. ^ "Cape gauge locos despatched to Sudan". The Hindu. Chennai, India. 2005-10-20. Archived from the original on 2006-01-07.
  38. ^ "EGYPT-SUDAN RAIL LINK". Railways Africa. 31 May 2008. Archived from the original on 11 December 2008.
  39. ^ Johnston, Cynthia (8 July 2009). "Egypt studies building $500 million rail link to Sudan". Reuters UK. Archived from the original on 8 June 2021. Retrieved 15 July 2017.
  40. ^ Devarasetti, Hasini (9 April 2021). "Egypt and Sudan in talks to build new 900km-long railway line". Railway Technology. Archived from the original on 2 December 2023. Retrieved 2 December 2023.
  41. ^ Mutethya, Edith (10 June 2020). "ADB gives $1.2 million grant for Ethiopia-Sudan Railway study". China Daily. Archived from the original on 2 December 2023. Retrieved 2 December 2023.

Further reading

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  • Gunston, Harry (2001). Narrow gauge by the Sudanese Red Sea Coast. East Harling: Plateway Press. ISBN 1871980461.
  • Robinson, Neil (2009). World Rail Atlas and Historical Summary. Volume 7: North, East and Central Africa. Barnsley, UK: World Rail Atlas Ltd. ISBN 978-954-92184-3-5.
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