Op het (model)spoor in.. Afrika!

[Daan001]

Wat een interessant verhaal en een mooi diorama! Het geeft zeker de sfeer goed weer!!

Hier het eerste deel van mijn ervaring op de TAZARA railway van Dar es Salaam, Tanzania naar Kapri Moshi in Zambia. Sorry, het is in het Engels aangezien mijn vriendin destijds Engels was.. 

FROM DAR ES SALAAM TO KAPRI MOSHI PART 1

And here we are in the train, still heading in the direction of our destination, Kapri Moshi, near to Lusaka Zambia. It has become a little unsure however whether we will reach Lusaka in our current setup since the train we are in only has one passenger coach left, of about 10 when we left Dar es Salaam about 26 hours ago..

Day 1, Departure
The first day of our holiday started with a refreshing swim in the early morning and a nice brunch in restaurant ‘Salt’ in Dar es Salaam. Well situated among the more expensive office blocks on the peninsula, ‘Salt’ is filled with expats having their general expat chitchat over a cappuccino and a fruitcake. We take a heavy sandwich with all kinds of nice toppings, knowing that with our 48 hour train journey to Lusaka, this could be our last decent meal for a good while. Around noon our taxi driver picks us up to go to the large TAZARA station where we arrive an hour later. Still an hour till departure and the story goes that the train almost never departs on time..

Outside the Chinese built station, there are many people with big bags on their heads and loads of luggage and trade to be loaded in the train. The hall of the station is filled with people although you can only enter the station with a ticket. We are directed to the first class hold room where it becomes clear that most of the 1st class passengers are muzungus (white people) from which all are tourists. Shortly afterwards we see the first people heading towards the tracks indicating that the train is soon leaving. With our backpacks, we join the crowd towards the tracks. The train exists out of blue-grey coloured coaches with distinctive steel blinds in front of the windows which you can open and close. Most of the blinds are stuck however at different heights meaning that you have to be lucky to get the full size window.





The first class coaches are at the back of the train, then two restaurant cars and then the second class coaches which have seats only, about 10 in total. The first class coach has separate cabins with in every cabin 4 beds. The lower ones can be used as seats as well. For comfort we have bought 4 tickets to be sure to have a cabin for ourselves, with 70 euros for the whole trips this cant do much damage.. Our cabin has closed blinds but luckily our train Stuart can open it with a bit of force and we get to know the meaning of the designated stick we thought someone left in our cabin, this to keep the blind open since the original mechanism is long gone.. The stick turns out to be our most precious item on the journey! Being a train freak I decide to walk and check out the loco, which isn’t there as yet. Not long after though a 6 axle usa style diesel engine arrives with a freight car attached to it.







Although the engine moves slowly towards the passenger coaches, once it attaches to the single connector, the whole train is pushed back by the impact. About 10 minutes later the station chef declares the train is soon leaving and we see people hurry to load more goods into the freight car at the front. The horn of the engine sounds three times and with a big roar of the dieselengine the train starts moving, well in time! While we are passing the outskirts of Dar es Salaam town, the tracks are so bad, the coaches are jumping up and down in a fixed rhythm, so heavily we feel like riding on a camel more than sitting in a first class train compartment.



Once out of Dar es Salaam, the train makes its way through the green hills, probably ‘Pugu hills’, a nice area for hiking and bird watching. After about 4 hours, the scenery gets more wild and after crossing a river, we enter into Selous Game reserve, one of the biggest game reserves in Tanzania! The guys from the restaurant car come and ask us what we would like to eat. I decide for the chicken with rice and my girlfriend decides for the fish. Fish in the train, that is a nice surprise, but after a few minutes the Stuart comes back to tell us that we only can get rice and chicken. How surprising. We get some nice cold Kilimanjaro beers, and a nice plate with fried chicken, rice and some kind of spinach vegetable. Our fully opened window (there is no window) is our TV with the African landscape of Selous Game reserve passing by in the late afternoon. Since long I always imagined how cool it would be to cross Africa by train and actually see African wildlife from your train compartment and while enjoying the beer, this is an amazing experience! We see warthogs families running through a swamp, we see gazelles jumping in the high grass and a giraffe, not giving any notice to the train passing by. Having done a few safaris now, this experience stays one of the most memorable.







Unfortunately, we do see quite some elephant bones and skulls next to the track and well after this journey I learned that the Chinese built TAZARA railway contributed to the large elephant poaching in Selous game reserve. No wonder, the majority of the elephant poaching is meant for the Chinese ivory market. A sad case of how development has a negative impact to the environment as well. While the sun sets, we greatly enjoy the magnificent views over Selous, enjoying our beers and bouncing up and down on the badly maintained tracks.



Just before nightfall, we slow down and a side track emerges. We are passing a train actually, the first one since we left Dar. While we are passing the other train it becomes clear that this is not a normal train, this train has two nicely maintained red locomotives and behind a whole set of beautiful green and white coaches with signs that look like the orient express. This is the ‘Pride of Africa’. Inside the train, we see a wooden interior with carpet, kitchens with kooks working, restaurants, lounges, sleeping compartments and all the passengers wearing dinner outfits in early 19th century Empire style. Many of them lean out of the windows with their gin tonics in hand, waving at our plebs-train passing by which makes everybody laugh. While we pass the last coach we see that it has an open balcony at the back with nicely decorated lights and a lounge bar behind it. It must be an amazing experience to have your sundowner overlooking the African plains from that train balcony. While passing the Pride of Africa’s red lights are slowly disappearing in the African wilderness. We hear our loco giving an extra roar while we speed up again and steadily move into Africa’s dark night.

[Mar-Cas]

Patrollie-fiets Boere oorlog 1899-1902 te Kimberly museum. Gebruikt door de Voortrekkers en Engelsen.
Het is  niet duidelijk wie het als eerste heeft toegepast


Treinsamenstelling ZR getrokken door GE  U20C (Zambia Nokonde)

[Eelco Storm]

Die railfiets is heel interessant, die gebruikten de Nederlanders ook in Atjeh:



Maar goed, veel te off topic. Sorry 

Eelco

[Daan001]

Hier wat fotos van de railway crossing op het niet meer in gebruik zijnde traject van Arusha naar Dar es Salaam ter hoogte van KIA airport (Tanzania).

Zeker dat het een mooie toeristische route zou kunnen zijn met uitzicht op de Kilimanjaro en de Mnt Meru..


vergane glorie


uitzicht op Mount Meru


Stalen bielzen


uitzicht op Mount Kilimanjaro

Ingenieurs bedrijf COWI uit Denemarken is bezig met een plan deze lijn weer in bedrijf te stellen, echter dat duurt nog jaren.

groeten

[Duizendpoot]

Deze kwam ik tegen tussen Kaapstad en Johannesburg. We mochten ook nog binnen kijken, maar dat was decadentie ten top.
Niet iets waar ik vrolijk van werd. Ik moet nog even verder zoeken want er was ook genoeg stoomtractie rond Mosselbaai te zien.