Roger Farnworth Railways

[rogerfarnworth]

Re: The Railways of Tanzania again....
Part 4 – Moshi to Arusha

The featured image in the linked post is a photograph of East African Railways (EAR) 29 class steam locomotive no. 2904 at Moshi depot, Tanzania, © Basil Roberts and licenced for reuse under a Creative Commons licence (CC BY-SA 4.0).

The Moshi-Arusha railway line is a 86 km extension of the Usambara Railway (Usambarabahn) in northern Tanzania, It was initially built between 1911 and 1929 and rehabilitated in 2018–2019, the metre-gauge line connects the Northern zone to the port of Tanga, and mainly serves as a freight corridor for agriculture and industrial goods.

http://rogerfarnworth.com/2026/04/15/rai...to-arusha/

[rogerfarnworth]

RE: The Railways of Tanzania again. ...
A number of different articles are under preparation, this is the next completed article:

Part 9 – Narrow-Gauge Industrial Lines

The featured image for this article shows a train on the Kihuhui Bridge on the Sigi Railway in Tanganyika.

Tanganyika (now part of Tanzania) possessed a dense network of industrial narrow-gauge railways, primarily developed during the German colonial era (German East Africa) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to support plantation agriculture and forestry. While the main lines (Central Line and Usambara Railway) were built to 1,000 mm (metre) gauge, industrial, plantation, and forestry lines often used 600 mm (1 ft 11 5⁄8 in) or 750 mm (2 ft 5 1⁄2 in) gauge.

Following World War I, the British administration deemed many of the 600 mm “light railways” to be economically inefficient compared to the, at the time, more efficient 1,000 mm metre-gauge lines, leading to a shift away from developing these smaller lines.

Early Industrial Narrow Gauge lines included: the Sigi Railway; and the Sisal Plantation Railways. Later industrial lines included: the Southern Province Railway, the Port of Bujumbura Railway, and Narrow Gauge Railways near Moshi.

http://rogerfarnworth.com/2026/03/04/nar...a-tanzania

[rogerfarnworth]

RE: Tanzania again. ...
[/u]Part 10 – The Mkumbara to Neu Hornow Cableway/Ropeway, Usambara Hills, German East Africa/Tanganyika

The western Usambara Hills were characterised by precipitous cliffs and deep gorges. The provision of a rail link between Mkumbara and Neu Hornow was not considered practical.

A 9 km long ropeway was constructed, under the ownership of “the firm of Wilkens and Wiese, and designed to carry cedar from the Shume plateau to the railway, an enterprise that was never an economic success. The longest span of the ropeway, 907 metres, was said to be the longest in the world when it was built in the years 1910-1911.” [1: p75] Wood was transported via the Goatal/Ngoha Valley in the Schumewald/Shume Forest. [2]

http://rogerfarnworth.com/2026/03/08/the...tanganyika