The old saying: “always something new out of Africa” is alive and well in Tanzania. Only a week or two ago, Uganda’s Daily Monitor quoted minister of works and transport Abraham Byandala saying that $US3 billion was budgeted by the governments of his country and Tanzania for a new railway to run from the Tanzanian port of Tanga to Nimule (on the Sudanese border) by way of Arusha, Musoma, Kampala, Tororo and Gulu.
Only a week later, Transport World Africa on line quoted The East African giving a figure of $4.7 billion for a new line along the same route. A curious thing about this second version is a statement indicating the new line “will run alongside the $3 billion Tanga-Arusha-Musoma-Kampala railway”. As there is no such line at present (except the metre-gauge, out-of-use Tanga-Arusha portion) this sounds as though $3bn is to be spent on one new line, and a separate $4.7bn on a line running alongside it.
The $4.7bn line, according to The East African, is to be 1,435mm gauge. The China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC), the paper says, is busy with a feasibility study. It quotes CCECC managing director Wang Xiangdong saying: “We are expecting to hand over the feasibility study by April, while construction of the 880km railway line is expected to be completed by 2015.”
[ We suspect the papers’ journalists have got their lines crossed. Exactly the same figure – $4.7bn – is the latest price-tag for the new Dar es Salaam-Rwanda line which goes nowhere near Tanga, Arusha, Musoma or Kampala. It does run parallel to the existing metre gauge as far as Isaka – and that happens to be 880km from Dar. – editor: Railways Africa
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Your report on 01/02 on the Tanga-Uganda railway got me looking up places on my Map Studio Central and Southern Africa map amd on Goole earth. Singida is due west of Tanga, about 100km north of Manyoni on the Central Tanzanian railway. This is on the B3 road running north-westward, a route one might expect the new railway to follow in its curve around the south-westen corner of Lake Victoria, heading for Mutukula on the Ugandan border.
The Dar es Salaam-Rwanda line will come off the existing Mwanza branch of the Central Tanzanian line at Isaka, where the branch curves north-eastward and co-incidentally crosses the B3 road. Thus from here north-westward there will indeed be two railways running in the same direction so presumably alongside – but one of metre gauge and the other Stephenson Standard.This would extend for 360km to the vicinity of Rusoma – not marked on the map but Google earth identifies it as being on the Kagera River at a waterfall with the border road bridge closer than at Victoria Falls.
The two lines could be combined by relaying 1435 gauge between Dar and Korogwe (junction for Tanga) provided Rwanda and Burundi were agreeable to using that gauge at their end. This would give all three landlocked countries (and potentially South Sudan) access to both Tanga and Dar es Salaam. It would also give the latter port the distinction of being served (with a single passenger terminal station?) by three gauges: 1067mm from Zambia, 1000 from the Central line and 1435 from the north-west.