The Great Railway Disaster

Five years have passed since Zambia joined the U.N. boycott against Rhodesia. During that time, Rhodesia has managed to survive quite well with the help of embargo-breaking Western countries and supplies from South Africa. Meanwhile, Zambia's economy has dwindled toward disaster. Landlocked, Zambia needed transit routes through Rhodesia to southern Africa's ports for its main export, copper. After the boycott closed the Rhodesian borders, scarce alternative routes disappeared, world copper prices declined, and Zambia began running short of food, machinery, oil fertilizer, soap and coal. Inflation ballooned to 30%, fueled partly by expensive airfreight shipments to speed goods, and foreign debt climbed to $1.5 billion.

According to Zambian planners, the economic failure should not have occurred. As it happened, the Chinese, eager for an African foothold, had already granted a $460 million interest-free loan to Zambia and neighboring Tanzania to finance a new 1,160-mile rail link running northeast from Zambia's copper mines to Tanzania's Indian Ocean port of Dar es Salaam. The project, built by 51,000 Chinese and African laborers, was first called the Great Uhuru (Swahili for freedom) Railway, renamed Tazara (for Tanzania-Zambia Railway) and was completed in 1976. Tazara should have provided Zambia with a new lifeline. Instead, it has become as useful as, well, Ian Smith. Last week TIME Nairobi Bureau Chief David Wood traveled the length of the Tazara to discover what had gone wrong. His report:

The twice-weekly passenger express left on schedule, gliding smoothly out of the airy Chinese-built station at 6:40 p.m. Picking up speed (to a jaunty 30 m.p.h.), the train, imported from China along with everything else that went into making the Tazara railway, headed southwest toward its Zambian terminus, which, according to the timetable, lay 36 hours away.

The equipment was only two years old and already showed signs of neglect. Toilets that the Chinese once scrubbed meticulously were now subjected to desultory and occasional swabbings by Tanzanian and Zambian workers. The dining car was clean but cramped and hot; its $2.50 menu, passengers joked, included only two choices: chicken and rice, and rice and chicken. In second and third class, travelers swayed together, jammed six or eight to a compartment.

An hour out of Dar, the commissary had already depleted its stock of warm beer and soft drinks. No one seemed to mind; passengers had brought their own cases of drinks, huge bundles of bananas, cashews, bread and other staples and, inevitably, transistor radios blaring the immensely popular Zaire Rock, a rhythmic cacophony of drums and electric guitars.

The Tazara wound across virgin bush, its gleaming China-forged rails resting on immaculate beds of crushed stone. The 300 bridges, 19 tunnels, concrete retaining walls, culverts and sidings amounted to an awesome engineering feat. Even the hundreds of footpaths that crossed the tracks were neatly marked (in English) with big railway-crossing signs.

Unfortunately, railway operations are no match for the African right of way.Three hours out of Dar, our express came to an abrupt halt; it had killed a young giraffe that had wandered out of the savannah. An hour was lost as the crew replaced a broken brake hose, while passengers crowded around the carcass to gawk and hack off chunks of meat. At Mkushi, one of the many Zambian bush towns that have been revitalized by the railway, we waited for two more hours under a broiling sun. Our engineer and conductor lost an argument with station controllers over whether our express or a lumbering local should have priority on the single track.

A scheduled ten-minute stop at Mbeya, a major station on the line, consumed four hours. About 300 yds. down the track from Mbeya, the train ground to a stop for two more hours, blocked this time by a derailed locomotive that lay sideways across the track, attended by an honor guard of solemn onlookers. Passengers transferred to another train on the other side of the locomotive. Ragged local children, helping to transfer luggage, amassed undreamed-of fortunes in tips.

The express finally chugged into its Zambian terminal eleven hours late. We were lucky at that. Freight trains normally require 20 days or more to make the round trip, owing to equipment failures, crashes, derailments and endemic small-scale pilfering. About 30% of the 2,100 freight cars, and up to a third of the locomotives, are out of commission at a time.

As of last week, the amount of freight hauled on the Tazara had dropped from an average 1,150 tons daily in 1977 to 700 tons. Just before the railroad opened, 100,000 tons of Zambian copper were awaiting shipment to world market. Last week another 100,000 tons were still waiting, smelted into thick, yard-long ingots and worth $80 million. Perhaps this helps explain why Zambia's President Kenneth Kaunda decided last month to ignore the U.N. boycott and reopen his borders to Rhodesia. The resumption of this transit route should take some strain off the Tazara and allow Zambia and Tanzania to repair and refurbish it. Last week, to save face all around, Peking agreed to keep 750 technicians working on the railroad for two more years, instead of bringing them home. Their contracts were expiring almost as fast as the Tazara railway.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.