Italian colonial railways

The first rail lines were built mainly for war needs in the absence of efficient means of communication in the occupied territories, after the conquests of Eritrea and Libya. However, were quite limited in the first decades of occupation. In 1940 the amount of railways in operation, between Italian East Africa and Libya, amounted to 1,556 km of which, however, the 693 km of the Italian section of the Railway Djibouti-Addis Ababa were pre-existing and built by the French Empire for Ethiopia.

The railways were built by Italy from the outset with little potential, because built with narrow gauge rails and with light metal type, and were never of great economic importance because isolated from the lines of neighboring states. Indeed, the choice of a

In 1940 there were some projects of new colonial railways in the Italian Empire:

• Tripoli-Benghazi in Libya (1,000 km in construction since summer 1941)^[2]
• Tripoli-border Tunisia (in construction since June 1941)
• Assab-Dire Dawa in Ethiopia & Eritrea
• Kassala-Agordat in Eritrea & Sudan^[3]

Two international projects were studied for decades, but never done because of excessive financial difficulties:

• Italian "Transaharan railway" (Tripoli-Tchad/Camerun) between Libia and the Gulf of Guinea^[4]
• Asmara-Addis Abeba-Mogadiscio (since the 1890s projected and allowed by international Treaties)^[5]

All these projects were stopped by the

Italian colonial railways resumen

In 1940 the Italian colonial railways had 1,561 km and were the following:

Railway name	Km	Years when built	Colony
Addis Abeba–Gibuti	684 kmOnly Ethiopia section	1902-1917	Africa Orientale Italiana (Ethiopia)
Asmara–Biscia	227 km	1914–1932	Africa Orientale Italiana (Eritrea)
Bengasi–Soluch	56 km	1926	Italian Libya
Bengasi–Barce	108 km	1914–1927	Italian Libya
Massaua–Asmara	118 km	1901–1911	Africa Orientale Italiana (Eritrea)
Massaua–Saati	26 km	1886–1887	Africa Orientale Italiana (Eritrea)
Mogadiscio–Villaggio Duca degli Abruzzi	113 km	1924–1927	Africa Orientale Italiana (Somalia)
Tripoli–Tagiura	21 km	1912	Italian Libya
Tripoli–Vertice 31	90 km	1912–1915	Italian Libya
Tripoli–Zuara	118 km	1912–1919	Italian Libya
Ferrovie coloniali italiane (Italian colonial railways)	1,561 km

With the above railways there were some decauville railways, like:

• Mersa Matuma–Kululi (
  Badda, located between Massawa and Assab
  . A Decauville gauge line was built in 1905 by the Italians inside the port of Mersa Fatuma and from it into the hinterland until Kululi (called "Colulli" in Italian) near the Ethiopian border.
• Villabruzzi–Ferfer (
  Second World War, the line was extended by the Italian army by about 150 km: the railway reached Ferfer, near the present-day Somalia-Ethiopia border.^[6]
• Genale–Afgoi (Italian Somalia). In 1924, a minor railway was built in the area just west of
  Italian Mogadishu and it had a small track in 600 mm gauge: the Genale-Afgoi decauville. The little railway was 46 km long and united the farming settlement of Genale with Afgoi
  on the Mogadishu-Villagio Duca degli Abruzzi route. Construction was managed by the "Società Agricola Italo Somala" (SAIS), which opened the track so that its plantations' powered sugar cane could be transported to the Mogadishu Port.

• Eritrean Railway
• Mogadishu-Villabruzzi Railway
• Ferrovie dello Stato

References

Bibliography

• Astuto, Riccardo (1941). "Questioni ferroviarie africane". Rassegna Economica dell'Africa Italiana. XXIX. Roma.
• Basuyau, Vincent (1991). Le chemin de fer de Djibouti à Addis Abeba (Mémoire de DEA). Paris: Université de Paris I-Panthéon Sorbonne.
• Crozet, Jean Pierre. "The Franco Ethiopian and Djibouty Ethiopian railway" (Detailed Website on the Addis Abeba-Djibouti railway)
• Gatti, G. (1975). Le ferrovie coloniali italiane. Roma: Ed. GRAF.