Angola
Under British influence, most of the railways in Angola were built
to 3ft 6in (1067mm) gauge, though the Moçâmedes Railway was originally
built to 600mm gauge, being converted to 1067mm in the 1950s. Railways
generally ran from the coast inland, with few north to south links, so
that a number of isolated networks developed.
The first and only international rail connection came in 1929 with
the opening of the Benguela Railway from Lobito to the Belgian Congo
(present day Democratic Republic of the Congo). Two years later, this
railway was linked through the Belgian Congo with Northern Rhodesia
(present day Zambia).
The railways were largely devastated during three decades of civil
war at the end of the 20th century. Since 2002 reconstruction has been
taking place. At the time of writing (early 2010) rather less than half
the track length of the former routes were open for traffic; much
remains to be done.
- CFB Benguela Railway: Lobito to Huanbo, about 380 operational
km of the total system length of nearly 1500km to Luau on the border of
DR Congo. Reconstruction of the remainder of the line is planned to be
finished in 2011 (No website located at present)
- CFL Luanda Railway: Luanda to Malanje, 424 km
(No website located at present)
- CFN Namibe (Moçâmedes) Railway: commuter services out of Namibe
and freight over longer distances. The entire network consists of a line
from Namibe to Menongue, with branches to Chiange and Cassinga. The
total length of line is over 903km, about 500 km of which is currently in
service. Reconstruction of the remainder of the line is planned to be
completed in 2010. There is also a firm, but long term, proposal for a
rail link between the iron ore rich area of Cassinga and the Namibian
border at Oshikango, where it would connect with Namibian Railways
(No website located at present)
