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Angola Railroads
In the 1980s, three different 1.067-meter gauge rail
systems
ran from the hinterland to major ports on the Atlantic
Ocean
(see
fig. 10). The longest line (1,394 kilometers) was the
Benguela
Railway. It linked the port of Lobito with the central
African rail
system that served the mining regions of Shaba (Zaire) and
the
Zambian Copperbelt. The Benguela Railway had a rail spur
to Cuima,
near Huambo. In late 1988, it was operating only between
Lobito and
Benguela. In the south, the 899-kilometer Namibe Railway
linked the
port of Namibe to Menongue, with branches to Chiange and
to the
Cassinga iron ore deposits. In the north, the Luanda
Railway ran
from Luanda to Malanje, with rail spurs to Caxito and
Dondo. In
addition, a 123-kilometer, narrow-gauge line that had run
from
Porto Amboim to Gabela was closed as of 1987.
All three major systems have been subject to guerrilla
attacks,
and service on the Benguela Railway in particular has been
severely
affected. By May 1986, an estimated US$69 million worth of
damage
had been inflicted on the line, and the company that
operated it
had accumulated more than US$200 million in losses by
1986.
Observers estimated that at least US$180 million would be
needed to
rehabilitate service on the line and that repairs would
take five
years. Similarly, traffic on the Namibe Railway has
declined
because of attacks by UNITA and because of the closure of
the
Cassinga iron mines, which had provided the line with most
of its
freight. Finally, by 1986 the Luanda Railway was carrying
only
one-fifth of the level carried in 1973, a consequence of
guerrilla
attacks and the deterioration of the line.
The rehabilitation of the "Lobito corridor" has been
adopted as
an official SADCC project. The project included the
purchase of
more locomotives and wagons and the upgrading of the
entire
Benguela Railway from Lobito to the Zaire border. The
project also
included the development of the Lobito port at a cost of
about
US$90 million.
Data as of February 1989
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