Zambia Railways (ZR) is the national railway company ofZambia and one of the two major railway organisations in Zambia. The other system is the binationalTAZARA Railway (TAZARA) that interconnects with the ZR atKapiri Mposhi and provides a link to the Tanzanian port ofDar es Salaam.
Currently, theZambia Railways Line travels from theVictoria Falls border toChingola viaLivingstone,Choma,Mazabuka,Lusaka,Kabwe,Kapiri Mposhi,Ndola andKitwe for freight services. Pure passenger services are only offered between Livingstone and Kitwe; mixed services operate between Livingstone andMulobezi.[1]
The1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in)gaugeCape gauge ZR network was built during British colonial rule as part of the vision of theCape-Cairo railway but the economic spur was to access the mines of Central Africa. The railway started as part ofRhodesia Railways, the company which ran the railways ofNorthern Rhodesia andSouthern Rhodesia as an integrated operation, which was one of the largest employers and enterprises in both countries. The railway arrived in the future Zambia early in 1905 when the 150 km Livingstone-Kalomo line was built in advance of completion in September of that year of theVictoria Falls Bridge from the thenSouthern Rhodesia toLivingstone. The first wagons on the line were hauled by oxen, then a single locomotive was conveyed in pieces by cableway across the gorge where the bridge was being built to start up operations to Kalomo in advance of the main line connection.[2]
Another major bridge was required to cross theKafue River and the 427 m longKafue Railway Bridge, the longest on the Rhodesia Railways or Zambian Railways network, was completed in 1906.
The line reached Broken Hill (Kabwe) in 1906 andNdola in theCopperbelt in 1909 (connecting toSakania in theBelgian Congo), some 20 years before the first large-scale copper mines opened there.
Zambia Railways operates theMulobezi Railway, a branch line fromLivingstone, built as a private timber line.
In the mid-1960s, spurred by theRhodesian UDI crisis, the newly independent Zambia split its railways off from Rhodesia Railways, and Zambia Railways came into being.[3][citation needed]
Railway Systems of Zambia Limited (RSZ) was a private company incorporated and registered in Zambia. It is a subsidiary of NLPI Ltd, an investment holding company.
The NLPIConsortium participated in a tender in respect of the Zambia Railways Concession. The Consortium was declared the winner with the signing of the FreightConcession Agreement on 14 February 2003.
The Concession was to operate for a period of 20 years with a possible extension for a further 10 years. However, in September 2012, the government revoked the concession and Zambia Railways resumed control.[4]
There are no current international passenger services of the ZR, only of theTAZARA railway.[citation needed]
TheCopperbelt reaches into theKatanga province of theDemocratic Republic of the Congo with mines atLubumbashi and further north-west. The ZR network connects to Lubumbashi via Ndola andSakania. At one time theLubumbashi line connected to theBenguela Railway throughAngola toLobito Bay, but the line did not operate from the 1970s, until reopening in 2018.[5]
As most of its major export routes ran through thenapartheid controlledSouth Africa, Zambia needed an alternate export route for its copper. In 1976,Chinese construction crews completed the 1,860-kilometer-long Tanzania-Zambia Railway (TAZARA) which runs fromKapiri Mposhi (200 km north of the Zambia capitalLusaka), to theTanzanian capital and major East African port ofDar es Salaam.[6] After being operated jointly by the two nationalised railway systems, the Chinese again took over the running of TAZARA in a joint transport agreement from January 2007, which covered both direct air links toBeijing Capital International Airport and copper ore export.
ViaVictoria Falls Bridge theZimbabwe rail network and the ports inMozambique (Beira,Maputo) and theSouth African Railways ofSouth Africa can be reached. The condition of the 100-year-old bridge restricts traffic.
Up to the mid-1960s, passenger and sleeper services ran from Ndola toBulawayo, Zimbabwe (thenRhodesia), connecting with a sleeper service toCape Town and theUnion Castle shipping line toSouthampton,UK. This was the main travel route between south-central Africa and Europe before theJet age. The journey from Ndola to Cape Town took five days.
Ndola-Bulawayo passenger services ended when Zambia suspended all services across the Victoria Falls Bridge in response toRhodesia's UDI crisis. Freight services were occasionally resumed up to the line re-opening in 1980, but successful passenger services have not resumed.
A rail link to theSena railway betweenMozambique,Malawi andZambia, allowing access to theport of Nacala, was first planned in 1982. On the Malawi side of the border, the line toMchinji was finished in 1984,[7] but a connection toChipata in Zambia was only opened in 2010. This line remains idle because there are few facilities at Chipata.[8]
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