Тhe BRICS Space: Historical Chronicles

In the final decade of the 19th century, the unified Ethiopian state — rebuilt through the efforts of Emperor Menelik II (r. 1889–1913) — was on the rise. Political and economic reforms were underway, and trade with foreign countries was growing. The country was in vital need of access to the sea. The journey from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital since 1889, to the port of Djibouti — the administrative center of the colony of French Somaliland (now the Republic of Djibouti) — took more than 25 days, and the cost of transporting goods by some 50,000 camels and other pack animals was prohibitively high. The only solution was to build a railway.
In March 1894, Menelik II signed a 99-year concession agreement with the Swiss engineer Alfred Ilg (1854–1916). The task was to build 784 km of track (of which 683 km lay within Ethiopian territory), crossing deserts, mountains, numerous rivers, and gorges. The total elevation change along the route from Djibouti to Addis Ababa was 2,400 meters.


First share certificate of the Imperial Ethiopian Railways Company (depicting Emperor Menelik II) and a medal bearing the Emperor's profile, to mark the opening of the first section of the line. (Source: scbist.com. Photo courtesy of M.Yu. Sitnikov, Honorary Consul of Ethiopia in Russia.)

Construction of the railway began on 1 December 1897 — a year that occupies a special place in Ethiopian history, as it saw the conclusion of the war with Italy, which ended in the complete defeat of Italian forces at the Battle of Adwa. Notably, Alfred Ilg played a significant role in that outcome, having organized the production of weapons and ammunition in the country. That same year, Menelik II awarded Ilg the title of "Counselor with the rank of His Excellency" and also appointed the engineer as Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Construction of the single-track, 1,000 mm gauge line used 12-meter rails (with a weight per linear meter ranging from 20 to 30 kg depending on the section), laid on metal sleepers that entered history under the name "Menelik sleepers." Work proceeded under difficult conditions, led by an international team of engineers assembled by Ilg. All construction materials, equipment, and rolling stock were delivered by sea through the port of Djibouti.
In 1902, the railway reached Dire Dawa station (in Amharic, "empty plain"), near which the city of the same name was founded — today the second-largest city in Ethiopia. This marked the completion of the first, lowland section of the line.

Meanwhile, in 1898, Menelik II established diplomatic relations with Russia. Right up to the outbreak of World War I, a considerable number of Russian subjects visited Ethiopia, including officers of the Russian Imperial Army. Naturally, travel on the new railway became a notable episode in many of their memoirs.
On 29 March 1910, the Russian icebreakers Taimir and Vaigach of the Hydrographic Expedition to the Arctic Ocean put in at the port of Djibouti on their way to Vladivostok. The commander of the Vaigach was Lieutenant Commander A.V. Kolchak (1874–1920), a polar explorer who would later become a prominent military and political figure. The chief medical officer of the expedition was the legendary explorer of the Northern Sea Route, geographer, and doctor of medicine L.M. Starokadomsky (1875–1962).
During the ships' stay in port, the Governor of Djibouti invited the naval officers on a hunting trip to Abyssinia (Ethiopia). According to the memoirs of L.M. Starokadomsky, a special passenger car was kindly provided for the Russian visitors' journey to Dire Dawa, attached to a freight train.
In 1913, the great Russian poet, traveler, and officer N.S. Gumilev (1886–1921) made a journey along this railway — not without adventure. He managed to travel only 160 km by train to Ayshastation. Further progress was blocked when the track was washed out. Most passengers spent the night and returned on the same train, but the intrepid Gumilev resolved to press on, traveling first by handcar, then on flat cars and in the carriages of maintenance trains, arriving in Dire Dawa only on the third day.


Railroad track near the station of Logahardim, 1913. (From the collection of the Kunstkamera, St. Petersburg. Photo: N.S. Gumilev.)

In 1917, the railway at last reached Addis Ababa, where a ceremonial opening took place on 17 June in the presence of Empress Zewditu of Ethiopia. Long before this event, Alfred Ilg had fallen victim to court intrigues and left the country in 1907; from 1908, the line was completed by the joint Franco-Ethiopian Railway Company (CFE).
The plans of Ilg to build a branch from Addis Ababa to Jimma — a major coffee-growing center — were never realized.
Upon completion of construction, the Djibouti–Addis Ababa line was operated by 54 steam locomotives, 36 passenger cars of three classes, and 445 freight cars, the majority of Swiss, French, and German manufacture. The steam locomotives of Winterthur (Switzerland), SLM 130 series, and those of Belfort (Alsace, then part of Germany), SACM 1.3.0 series, weighed 34–38 tons, had a boiler diameter of 1.8 m, and could reach speeds of up to 60 km/h on straight sections. Average train speeds, however, did not exceed 25 km/h owing to the difficult terrain and significant elevation changes.
It is worth noting that each locomotive was given a name, displayed on a bronze plate affixed to the sides of the engine — a detail that caught the attention of N.S. Gumilev. Locomotive No. 1 was named "Lion," others were called "Leopard," "Rhinoceros," "Hippopotamus." Some locomotives bore the names of cities. The fleet was later expanded to include a locomotive of the Belgian company FUF, HSP-231 series, and other engines.


  
The "Lion" locomotive, Swiss-built, 1899. (Source: Wikimedia Commons.)

The celebrated British author and journalist Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966), who arrived in Ethiopia in the autumn of 1930 for the coronation of Emperor Haile Selassie I, described the Djibouti–Addis Ababa railway as follows:
"The train normally runs once a week; the journey takes three days and two nights, with passengers stopping overnight at hotels in Dire Dawa and Awash. There are more than sufficient reasons why the train stays at a station overnight: in the first place, the locomotive headlights are liable to break down; in the second, during the rainy season the water frequently washes away whole sections of track; furthermore, the Galla and Danakil tribes through whose territory the line passes are born saboteurs — they need steel to forge into spear tips... However, for the duration of the coronation, the authorities deemed it necessary to maintain uninterrupted service so that the available rolling stock could cope, so to speak, with the increased volume of traffic. We left Djibouti on Friday afternoon and arrived in Addis on Sunday morning."
In 1952, in accordance with a United Nations resolution, Ethiopia was reunited with neighboring Eritrea, a former Italian colony that had been administered by a British military administration from 1941 to 1952. The country thereby gained direct access to the Red Sea. As a result, the Federation of Ethiopia and Eritrea inherited the railway line Massawa–Asmara–Keren–Akordat–Bishia, 305 km in length with a gauge of 950 mm, built during the period of Italian rule between 1887 and 1932.
Nevertheless, the main railway artery of the country remained the Djibouti–Addis Ababa line. By the 1960s, steam locomotives had been replaced on this line by diesel traction — a demanding standard, given that the route passed through desert with temperatures reaching +50°C and frequent sandstorms, as well as the Ethiopian highlands with their prolonged rainy season. From 1954, the primary supplier of diesel locomotives became Alsthom, a company that had established an excellent reputation in the countries of French West Africa. A total of 17 locomotives from this company were used. Each locomotive weighed 44 tons and was powered by a 770-kW engine.

  

 Series M diesel locomotive, manufactured by the Swiss company SLM, with a mixed freight and passenger train on the Holhol viaduct (Ethiopia), 1960. (Source: Wikimedia Commons.)

In 1959, CFE was nationalized. The 1960s became the "golden age" of the railway, when rail's share of the country's total freight turnover stood at 70%. At the peak of this prosperity, experts from Yugoslavia and France proposed building a branch from the existing main line to Dilla. Before long, however, the railway began to decline against the backdrop of the country's difficult economic situation. The crisis was compounded by the 1974 revolution, civil war, and military conflict between Ethiopia and Somalia.
In 1992, rebellious Eritrea gained independence, leaving Ethiopia once again with a single railway — one that was barely surviving due to a chronic shortage of spare parts and other difficulties. The end result was the permanent suspension in 2004 of rail service on the section between Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa.
Six years later, the Ethiopian government put forward a plan to develop a national railway network. The flagship project was to be a new standard-gauge (1,435 mm) Djibouti–Addis Ababa main line to replace the existing narrow-gauge track. The authorities of Djibouti endorsed the plans.


 
The former station in Addis Ababa with the remains of track infrastructure, 22 January 2018. (Source: Wikimedia Commons. Photo: Alexander Savin.)

In 2011, the Ethiopian Railways Corporation (ERC) signed contracts for the construction of an electrified (25 kV, 50 Hz) partially double-track railway from Addis Ababa to the border with Djibouti with two Chinese state-owned companies, China Railway Group (CREC) and China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC). The following year, Djibouti selected CREC to build its section of the line.
Construction proceeded from 2011 to 2016. However, due to an extraordinary event — a catastrophic drought — the unfinished line was pressed into emergency use as early as November 2015 to deliver grain from the port of Djibouti to starving Ethiopians. The official opening of the Ethiopian section took place on 5 October 2016 at the new Furi-Labu railway station in Addis Ababa, attended by the presidents of Ethiopia and Djibouti. On 10 January 2017, the 100-kilometer Djibouti section was ceremonially opened. The 759 km line was handed over for permanent operation only on 1 January 2018.
In 2017, the company Ethio-Djibouti Standard Gauge Rail Transport S.C. was established to operate the railway, with its headquarters in Addis Ababa. The company is owned by the governments of Ethiopia (75% of shares) and Djibouti (25% of shares). It commenced operational activities in 2024; prior to this, the line was operated by CREC and CCECC, whose Chinese staff trained Ethiopian railway workers. The company's fleet comprises 35 electric locomotives, 6 diesel shunting locomotives, 30 passenger cars, and approximately 1,100 freight cars.



Train on the Ethiopia–Djibouti railway near Addis Ababa. (Source: news.cn. Photo by theXinhuaNews Agency.)

The new railway line, for most of its length, was built not along the route of the old narrow-gauge line but some distance away from it. Interestingly, within the city limits of Addis Ababa, a light rail line built by CREC was opened in 2015 along some sections of the closed railway's former alignment. As for the eastern section of the narrow-gauge railway, it was largely preserved and rehabilitated; as of 2018, train services were operating over 213 km between Guelile (a border town in Djibouti) and Dire Dawa. Plans also exist to restore services on the narrow-gauge section between DireDawa and the town of Mieso (150 km).

Ethiopia is currently continuing to develop its standard-gauge railway network. Since 2015, construction has been actively underway on the electrified single-track Awash–Kombolcha–Hara Gebeya–Mekele line, with a total length of 608 km. Designed for speeds of up to 120 km/h, this line will connect the central and northern parts of Ethiopia. The first section to the town of Kombolcha is already nearly complete.

Prospective transport projects in Ethiopia

— Construction of the Weldia–Mekele railway line, 200 km in length.


— Construction of the high-speed railway line Awash– Weldia 400 km in length. Investment: USD 1.7 billion.


— Construction of the Semera–Tadjoura railway line, 300 km in length.


A joint project of 1520International and the Institute for Economics and Transport Development (IETD)