Rail transport in Ethiopia

All railways in Ethiopia are owned and operated by an Ethiopian state-owned enterprise, the Ethiopian Railway Corporation (ERC). A planned legislation opens rail transport to the private sector, from the construction of rail infrastructure to the operation of the same infrastructure and on to the operation of privately owned trains.^[1][2][3]

History

20th century

For more than a century, Ethiopia was served by an international

In the 1960s, when only the already ageing metre gauge railway between the Port of Djibouti and Addis Ababa did exist, an economically justified railway network project was proposed. External experts from Yugoslavia and France proposed an extension for the existing metre gauge railway starting in Adama and going to Dilla. All studies at that time supported the economic viability of the extension line and France then offered a loan to construct the railway line between Adama and Dilla.^[4] This metre gauge railway network, however, did never materialize.

21st century

In the year 2010, the Ethiopian government proposed a new railway network, The National Railway Network of Ethiopia. Some, if not most, of the proposed new railway lines were already planned decades before for the metre gauge railway (see the outline above).

The new National Railway Network of Ethiopia was considered to serve a strategic goal to allow Ethiopia a sustainable and stable

The ERC split up the National Railway Network of Ethiopia into eight railway routes.[7] The railway routes as presented by the ERC are ordered for their expected economic impact, those with the highest expected economic potential having the lowest numbers and coming first:

Impact of Tigray War

In October 2021 it was reported that during the Tigray War armed forces of the Tigray People's Liberation Front had looted or destroyed most of the construction equipment in Kombolcha. They also damaged part of the almost-finished railway infrastructure, such as tunnels and bridges.^[8] The disruption has thrown several thousand railway workers out of work. As of July 2022^[update] the construction site in Kombolcha was used as a camp for internally displaced persons. Nevertheless, the Ethiopian government still sees the project as a priority and intends to resume construction.^{[needs update][9]}

Railway projects

Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway

In 2011, one year after finalizing the plans on the national railway network, financing was secured for ERC-Route 1 (the Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway) and construction was awarded to Chinese construction firms.^[6] In October 2016 and January 2017, the railway was completed and inaugurated.^[10]

The railway of 759 kilometres (472 mi) length was considered to cost around US$3.5b (US$4m per km of railway) while the

Contradicting expectation, no contract and no financing was awarded to ERC-Route 2, so that neither the completion of the main line nor the link to Kenya's LAPSSET corridor or other railways in the economically interesting south and southwest could be started. Instead, ERC-Route 5 (split into the Awash–Weldiya Railway and the Weldiya–Mekelle Railway) were awarded to contractors in 2012, both railway lines running northwards from the town of Awash to Weldiya and then from Weldiya to Mekelle. It then took more than two years, until 2014, before financing was secured so that construction of both railways could start in February 2015.^[13] Their construction were started as EPC/Turnkey projects (FIDIC).

Awash–Weldiya Railway

The 392 km Awash–Weldiya Railway clearly is of strategic significance. It connects the whole north of Ethiopia, with almost 1/3rd of the Ethiopian population, with the main line and additionally through the Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway with Ethiopia's lifeline, the port of Djibouti. Also, several large cities of Amhara Region are directly served by the railway and the railway will connect Ethiopian industrial centers like Kombolcha with the world. The main ERC facilities (maintenance workshops etc. at Kombolcha) will be located there. These facilities add to the 392 kilometres (244 mi) of the main railway, making a total of 428 kilometres (266 mi) of rails. For this railway, the ERC was able to secure almost as much external funding per km of railway as for the Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway (loans of US$1.165b at total costs of US$1.7b), except that not from Chinese, but European investors facilitated through Credit Suisse. Funding was provided by a consortium of lenders, including Türk Eximbank, the Swedish National Export Credits Guarantee Board, Denmark's Export Credit Board, and Swiss Export Risk Insurance.^[14] The Turkish company Yapı Merkezi and its European subcontractors were chosen to perform the work. Substantial revenues are to be expected from this railway after completion.

The construction contract assumes costs per km of railway to be US$3.8m, which is surprisingly low for a challenging terrain with 56 bridges and 12 tunnels (tunnels: 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) length); theoretical calculations led to US$7m per km in 2015.^[15]

Weldiya–Mekelle Railway

The 216 km Weldiya–Mekelle Railway (with a total length of 241 km of rails) did not receive any known loan from foreign institutions (there have been several and always contradictory reports but a look at the balance sheet provides the numbers

A privately built railway was then considered instead if the annual potash production at the Dallol site would exceed 5m tonnes. That was an outcome of a pre-feasibility study from June 2016.[23]^[24]

Any start of potash mining however requires the development of the Dallol site. Such a development was foreseen to require foreign direct investments of more than US$2b. All that however was difficult given one major roadblock: the decades-old frozen and sometimes flaring-up war with Eritrea (for example during the Eritrean–Ethiopian War) at one of the most dangerous borders in the world. The Dallol potash reserves are shared between Ethiopia and Eritrea, and the Ethiopian concession areas are in part surrounded on two sides by Eritrean territory. Peace between Ethiopia and Eritrea – unlikely for decades – may however boost the potash business development. The word Peace was first used by the Ethiopian Prime Minister in April 2017.^[25]

Peace would serve both the Ethiopian and Eritrean economy and it would serve not only the potash business development in both countries but would also open a new rail transport corridor through both countries. On the Eritrean side, an old, now disbanded, and nearly 75 kilometres (47 mi) long

After the announcement of the two northern railways in 2012, the ERC was not able to secure loans and enough funding for the construction of other new railway line projects or even parts of them. That mostly affected the southern and western parts of Ethiopia and therefore the areas with expected economic prospects. Even apparent success stories did not hold. In May 2015, the Prime Minister laid the foundation stone for the Addis Ababa–Jimma Railway between Addis Ababa and Jimma, with an extension to Bedele being foreseen. The ERC was considered to have secured a Brazilian loan of US$1b from the Brazilian Development Bank. The prime contractor would have been Andrade Gutierrez. However, the funding was cancelled shortly after and the construction did not commence.^[14]

In 2013, the

A lack of exports means a lack of revenues to balance the increasing external debt (in US $). ERC planning issues contributed to that situation. The railway between Addis Ababa and Djibouti was officially constructed "as cheap as possible", lacking trunk lines, some operational infrastructure and the infrastructure for freight handling all the way down between Addis Ababa and Djibouti.[29]^[30] That did not go well and did not allow traffic on the railway in the fiscal year 2016–17. This again did not result in immediate revenues – but expenses. The now-missing infrastructure (such as dry ports for freight handling) had to be quickly planned and constructed. That did not arrive without additional costs, that were neglected during the construction phase of the railway.^[29]

In late 2016, the external ERC debt was at 95.7 billion

Government officials started to discuss exit strategies and openly discussed the possibility to partially sell the ERC or the Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway to private investors to balance the debt burden of the ERC.^[2] The construction of the Weldiya-Mekelle Railway was stopped temporarily.^[1] The head of the ERC resigned from his post.^[31]

Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn in April 2017 announced the cancellation of planned and future railway projects in mountainous northern and northwestern Ethiopia, in particular in Tigray.^[25] Reasons given for the cancellations were the costs of US$7–8m per km railway in rugged mountains instead of US$4m per km in flat lowlands or costs of roads of just US$1m per km. The Prime Minister stated, that a successful start of operations on the existing railways had priority for the foreseeable future. However, he also noted that peace with Eritrea, in particular, would make railways in the area likely again.^[25]

Given the high level of external debt, the Ethiopian government announced the cancellation of new railway projects in July 2017. That automatically meant that no new railways were to be built by public companies like the ERC in the foreseeable future.^[2][32]

Public-private partnerships

Instead, the Ethiopian government started legislation to implement

There are three interconnected railways between cities and the Ethiopian hinterland, which are foreseen to be the first railways of the National Railway Network of Ethiopia, see above. In addition, there is a light rail network. These are:

• Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway (operational)
• Awash–Weldiya Railway (under construction)
• Weldiya–Mekelle Railway (under construction)
• Addis Ababa Light Rail (operational)

Of the around 1364 km of railways in January 2018, ~800 km were fully operational (the Addis Ababa Light Rail and the Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway between Addis Ababa and Djibouti). Two railways are under construction, the Awash–Weldiya Railway with 392 km length, and the Weldiya–Mekelle Railway with 216 kilometres (134 mi) in length. The Awash–Weldiya Railway will see the first test runs on its first 270 kilometres (170 mi) between Awash and Kombolcha in Spring 2018. Two more railways are planned and are considered to be next in the pipeline:

• Modjo–Hawassa Railway (planned next, an extension of the Ethiopian Main Line to the south with future extensions towards Kenya)
• Sebeta–Ambo Railway (planned as the first common part of both the Sebeta-Ambo-Jimma and Sebeta-Ambo-Nekemte railways with future extensions to Bedele and the border with Sudan)

Railway specifications

In general, the railway specifications are based on the Chinese National Railway Class 2 Standard.^[12][33] However, with explicit demand by the Ethiopian Railway Corporation, some changes were made and adapted, which do not fit the Chinese standard.

The railway characteristics were first specified and used for the Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway and in many cases had to be used for other railways as well to keep the installations compatible with each other. Trains should be able to use different railways without having to switch locomotives (as an example). The most straightforward example of compatibility is, that there is no

• Gauge:
  Standard gauge
• Couplers: Janney AAR
• Brakes: Air
• Electrification:
  50 Hz
• Target speed (passenger): 120 km/h (75 mph)^[34]
• Target speed (freight): 80–90 km/h (50–56 mph)
• Turnouts and Passing Loops: 100km/h on loop line.
• Maximum train load (freight): 3,000–3,500 tonnes (3,000–3,400 long tons; 3,300–3,900 short tons) gross ^[34][35][36]
• Designed
  transport capacity: 10-20 million tonnes annually^[12]
• Length of arrival & departure track at passing loops: 850 m (dual locomotive: 880 m) [resulting max. train length ~800 m][34]
• Rail section: UIC 54 or 60kg rails
  CWR
  on concrete sleepers at 60cm spacing
• Minimum railway curve radius: 800–1,200 m (2,600–3,900 ft) [600–800 m (2,000–2,600 ft) at difficult locations]^[12][35]
  • See Minimum railway curve radius
• Maximum (ruling) gradient: 1.85-2.65 %^[12][34]
• Maximum vehicle loading gauge height : 5300 mm^[34]
• Trains run on the:
  Left
• Railway signalling: semi-automatic block^[12] or automatic block^[35]
• Train protection system: ETCS-2 SIL4^[37]
• Level crossings: permitted (no full grade separation)
• Formation: Double track or Single track (suitable for future doubling)
• Axle loading: 25 Tonnes
• Structure Gauge: UIC compatible
• The loading gauge width for new standard gauge railways in Africa is 3,400 mm (11 ft 2 in) the same as the original Shinkansen in Japan, and copied by China, South Korea, Ethiopia, Kenya and possibly Tanzania and Nigeria.

Major railway infrastructure

Major pieces of infrastructure are, for example,

• Modjo Dry Port (spur line and dry port operational, main import/export facility of Ethiopia)
• Dire Dawa International Airport
  )
• Kombolcha Dry Port (spur line & dry port under construction in 2017, direct access to the neighboring Industrial Park and the Kombolcha Airport)
• Mekelle Airport
  )
• Dukem Fuel Depot (spur line & depot planned)
• Awash Fuel Depot (spur line under construction in 2017, depot operational, depot expansion works)
• Adama Industrial Park (branch line in the planning stage, Industrial park under construction in 2017)
• Ayisha Industrial Park (both park and spur line planned)

Directly north of Kombolcha, the railway will get a few major infrastructure elements, in particular an operations centre for the entire network. There is the ERC main depot for rolling stock, the main maintenance workshops and also the main logistics center of the whole Railway Network of Ethiopia.

The ERC bought a rescue train for emergency operations (e.g. a heavy rail crane for emergency operations), that will be stationed at the Kombolcha workshops. The facilities will include eight rail tracks within the operations centre which will have a size of 15000 m².

Besides the main rail depot at Kombolcha, another depot exists in Addis Ababa (Indode) and in Dire Dawa, where METEC is located, a large state-owned company which in its Dire Dawa subsidiary is dedicated to the construction and maintenance of rail goods wagons.

Railway stations

Apart from the major railway infrastructure (freight yards, dry ports) considered to handle freight trains, the railways also feature railway stations for passenger trains. These railway stations along the railways most often have a single platform for passengers to enter or to leave trains. These platforms allow access without having the need to use stairs. Some have two platforms connected through a footbridge above the overhead catenary system. The platforms are roofed to protect passengers against sun, wind, and rain.

Railway stations for passenger trains always have a station building directly attached to the back of the principal platform. Consequently, all railway stations with a single platform have space for only one platform line and do not allow the presence of more than one train at the platform at the same time. In contrast, railway stations with two platforms have the space for two or three platform lines. All platforms are between 200 metres (660 ft) and 400 metres (1,300 ft) long.

The station buildings are used for ticketing and for refreshments and contain waiting rooms and even rooms for prayers. They have media available (at least electricity, water). The outer appearance of station buildings of the Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway shows some sort of architectural eclecticism including Ethiopian elements with some Chinese interpretation and rounded elements. The railway station buildings on the Awash–Weldiya Railway are rather functional and rectangular.

Metre gauge railway

Railway status

A 207 km long section of the old non-electrified single track

1. The Addis Ababa railway terminal, La Gare, is a century-old historical building. In 2008 a street project threatened it but the building survived and was not demolished.[39]
2. The Dire Dawa railway terminal is even older than the Addis Ababa railway terminal. It is still in use.

Rolling stock

Standard gauge railways

To meet modern railway standards, all the rolling stock dedicated to rail transport in Ethiopia has been designed and adapted to the harsh environmental conditions of Ethiopia. Braking performance has been improved to account for the differences in altitude. As temperatures and solar radiation in the area can vary greatly between night and day and from high mountain (greater than 2,400 metres (7,900 ft)) to the sea, in order to prevent aging caused by thermal shock and by high ultraviolet light in the plateau environment, all components – rubber, cables, and others – have been specifically designed, using laminated glass for blocking more than 90% of UV penetration.^{[citation needed]}

Locomotives

All locomotives were imported from China. 41 available electric locomotives are designated to haul freight trains and to perform freight handling, while only three electric locomotives serve passenger transport services. In addition, a number of diesel locomotives are to provide services off the main line.

The locomotives were derived from the platforms mentioned in the table above. The electric locomotives have different liveries. The ERP locomotives come with the Ethiopian national colors (green-yellow-red), the ERF locomotives replace the green by blue (red-yellow-blue), the DF4DH-derived locomotives are sky-blue while the ERS switchers are entirely yellow with one horizontal stripe in the national colors. All locomotives have been adapted to the harsh climatic conditions of Ethiopia and provide air-conditioning built in for the engineer.

The platform data for the HXD1C indicate, that the available power of 7200 kW is also available for regenerative braking. Two freight locos can couple and can do two-locomotive train control with heavy freight trains for railway slopes >0.9 %. In addition, the electric locomotives hauling passenger trains come with a dedicated power supply transformer to provide electric power for the air-conditioning / heating units of the passenger cars under the extreme climatic conditions of Ethiopia.^[42]

The diesel locomotives in particular were modified to work at different altitudes (from sea level to beyond 2400 metres) and to work under very high temperatures in excess of 50 °C in the desert areas of northeastern Ethiopia and Djibouti. They have a special computer-adjusted working mode of the diesel engine under such high temperature. In addition, the diesel locos have two different dust filters integrated in the air supply of the diesel engine in order to be able to work in especially dusty desert conditions.^[44][46]

Passenger cars (coaches)

Each passenger car shows its code near the four entrance doors, consisting of three letters and a 4-digit number (for example HSC 0017 or DPC 0002). Hard is the most basic coach design of China Railways. A translation of Hard into Economy Class is most appropriate. Because the Ethiopian HSC cars are almost identical to the Chinese Hard seat cars, travelling guides for trains in China might also be helpful for Ethiopian trains.^[47] Ethiopian Railways does not offer true Sleeping car services nor does Ethiopian Railways offer Business Class seats or First class travel. But it is possible to make a reservation for a single person, which includes a whole lockable compartment in Soft Berth Cars (4 berths per compartment), which makes the compartment a Solo soft sleeper.

Goods wagons

A total of 1100 goods wagons are in use on Ethiopian Railways. They were built by Baotou Beifang ChuangYe Co. Ltd (BFCY) in China. Half were assembled in China, and the other half were assembled by Metals and Engineering Corporation in Dire Dawa. All others were assembled in China.^[48][49]

The information on the wagons shown in the table below was outlined by an Ethiopia Railway Assessment.as part of a Logistics Capacity Assessment (LCA) by the World Food Programme.^[50]

See also

• East African Railway Master Plan, railway network planned to be linked with this network.
• Railway stations in Ethiopia
• Transport in Ethiopia

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Rail transport in Ethiopia.

• Ethiopia Railways Corporation
• ERC National Railway Network