The TAZARA turns 50: Riding the railway that bridges Tanzania and Zambia

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania to Kapiri Mposhi, Zambia — In Dar es Salaam’s bid station, hundreds of passengers sat amid piles of luggage arsenic a listless breeze blew done the unfastened windows. Shortly earlier their scheduled 3:50pm departure connected the Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority’s (TAZARA) Mukuba Express train, an update crackled implicit the tannoy: the bid would beryllium leaving 2 hours late.

A corporate groan rippled done the crowd, and nether the soaring extortion of the station, pigeons darted backmost and forth, disappearing into holes near from rotted-out ceiling tiles. But cipher was truly surprised. Given the train’s estimation for unreliable service, the passengers knew a two-hour hold for the TAZARA was practically connected time.

The railway runs from Tanzania’s largest metropolis done the country’s confederate highlands and crossed the borderline into Zambia’s copper provinces, yet pulling into the municipality of Kapiri Mposhi immoderate 1,860 kilometres (1,156 miles) away. It’s a travel that, according to authoritative timetables, should instrumentality astir 40 hours.

For regular passengers, it’s a inexpensive mode to scope parts of the state that are not located adjacent main highways. For overseas tourists, it’s a unsocial mode to spot Tanzania’s landscapes acold from the bustling cities and overcrowded safari parks, provided they are not successful a hurry. A first-class sleeper car each the mode to Mbeya, a question hub and borderline municipality conscionable to the eastbound of Zambia, surrounded by lush mountains and java farms, is conscionable implicit $20.

This year, the railroad celebrated its 50th anniversary, but it has struggled for astir of its existence, requiring overseas concern for basal upkeep and failing to haul the magnitude of freight it was built to carry. Inconsistent attraction and constricted concern person seen its infrastructure and cars deteriorate from decades of use.

It’s hard to find precisely wherever a travel connected the TAZARA volition beryllium astatine immoderate fixed time, owed to the myriad delays and breakdowns that randomise each journey. Simple derailments from poorly loaded cars and deteriorating tracks are common, and past there’s the occasional unfortunate brushwood with quality — successful August, work was cancelled aft a rider bid struck an African buffalo portion passing done Tanzania’s Mwalimu Julius Nyerere National Park.

But since the opening of 2025, the TAZARA has been plagued by much superior incidents — and fatalities — that uncover the hopeless request for an overhaul of some ageing infrastructure and mediocre information management. In April, 2 locomotives being moved from Zambia to a store successful Mbeya for repairs derailed astatine a span successful confederate Tanzania, sidesplitting some drivers.

Two months later, successful June, a bid derailed successful Zambia and was past struck by the “rescue train” dispatched to assistance it. The collision killed 1 TAZARA worker and injured 10 unit and 19 passengers, according to a media merchandise from the railway.

Citing “unexpected operational challenges,” rider work was concisely suspended successful aboriginal September. As it turned out, the fewer operational locomotives the TAZARA could tract were stuck successful Tanzania, aft a occurrence damaged 1 of the hundreds of bridges on the track.

But large improvements for TAZARA are connected the horizon, acknowledgment to a large concern by the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC), which has pledged $1.4bn to refurbish the ageing obstruction enactment implicit the adjacent 3 years. Though the continuation of rider work is mentioned successful the agreement, operation enactment volition necessitate immoderate pauses to regular work arsenic the task is completed.

Most of the wealth volition beryllium spent connected rehabilitating the tracks, but $400m volition spell toward 32 caller locomotives and 762 wagons, “significantly expanding freight and rider transport capacity,” according to a TAZARA statement. In return, the Chinese state-owned corp volition person a 30-year concession to tally the TAZARA railway and recoup its concern earlier turning day-to-day absorption backmost implicit to Tanzanian and Zambian authorities.