Ethio-Djibouti Railways

This article is about the meter gauge railway completed in 1917. For the standard gauge railway completed in 2017, see Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway.

Ethio-Djibouti Railways
Map of the Ethio-Djibouti Railway line
Overview
Other name(s)	Franco-Ethiopian Railway
Status	Partially operational
Termini	Addis Ababa Djibouti
Service
System	Heavy rail
History
Opened	First commercial service in 1901, completed in 1917
Superceded by	Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway
Technical
Line length	784 km (487 mi)
Track gauge	1,000 mm (3 ft 3+3⁄8 in) metre gauge

Ethio-Djibouti Railways
km 0 Port of Djibouti 19 Chebele Chebele viaducts 32 Goubetto 52 Holhol Holhol viaduct 71 Dasbiyo 88 Ali Sabieh 98 Guelile Djibouti Ethiopia Border & Customs 108 Dewele 132 Adele 140 Ayesha 162 Lasarat Harr mountains tunnel 202 Adigale 249 Milo 266 Harewa 291 El Bah 299 Shinile 311 Dire Dawa (Harar) 338 Hurso 370 Erer 377 Gotha 395 Bike 421 Afdem 450 Mulu 461 Mieso 475 Asabot 496 Kora 518 Arba Bordode Awash River gorge bridge 548 Awash 579 Metehara 617 Malka Jilo 634 Borchotto 657 Welenchiti 681 Adama/Nazaret 708 Mojo 732 Debre Zeyit 743 Dukem 763 Akaka Beseka 770 Callite 784 Addis Ababa

The Ethio-Djibouti Railway or Ethio-Djibouti Railways (French: Chemin de Fer Djibouto-Éthiopien (C.D.E.), known from 1897 to 1908 as the Compagnie Impériale des Chemins de Fer Éthiopiens (C.I.E.), and from 1908 to 1981 as the Compagnie du Chemin de Fer Franco-Éthiopien (CFE)), is both a railway company and an international metre gauge railway based in the Horn of Africa. It was built in 1894–1917 to connect the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa to the French colonial port city of Djibouti. After serving Ethiopia's transport needs for over a century, the non-electrified railway fell into a state of disrepair. It was then progressively abandoned in Central Ethiopia and in Djibouti.

In Eastern Ethiopia the metre gauge railway saw some rehabilitation and is still operating in 2018 at regional level after being officially superceded by the new Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway at the national level. A combined passenger and freight service runs two times a week to train stations between the Ethiopian city of Dire Dawa and the border to Djibouti at Dewele (passengers) and Guelile (freight). Further plans to rehabilitate more sections of the railway to support the regional economy have been announced in 2018.

The Ethio-Djibouti Railway

Significance

The Ethio-Djibouti Railway is a 1,000 mm (3 ft 3+3⁄8 in) gauge railway built in 1897–1917. The line connected the new Ethiopian capital city of Addis Ababa (1886) to the Port of Djibouti in French Somaliland, providing landlocked and isolated Ethiopia with railway access to the sea. The railway is single track and stretched 784 km, of which about 100 km lay in Djibouti. While it was a colonial railway in Djibouti, it was a railway of the independent Ethiopian Empire in Ethiopia.

The railway was the first, and for a long time the most important, industrial enterprise of Ethiopia. It trained many technicians, workers, engineers and managers, who then participated in the development and industrialization of the country. it helped keeping the Ethiopian Empire independent and sovereign.

Railway construction started in 1897 just one year after the decisive Battle of Adwa, which defeated Italian colonialism and saved Ethiopian sovereignty. Prior to the construction of the railway, the travelling time from the coast to Addis Ababa amounted to six weeks by camel & mule caravans. The Ethio-Djibouti Railways changed that and made parts of the Ethiopian Empire more accessible from the outside and made it more competitive economically and militarily. This role of the railway held until the 1950s, when road transport for the first time became competitive.

Originally, the railway was very French-dominated, it was much like a French exclave in Ethiopia. In 1909, the railway was nationalized in Ethiopia. The role Ethiopians played for the railway operation grew over decades and after 1959, Ethiopians took over almost all roles. Towns like Djibouti City and Dire Dawa but also Mieso benefitted greatly and expanded heavily. The railway became a national symbol with Ethiopian experts and staff and a source of Ethiopian pride. Irrespective the ethnicity, the "Ethiopian" stance was present all along the railway, the larger towns along the railway were often ethnically mixed but peaceful – and the common language of the employees was always French.

Rolling stock

SLM steam locomotive No. 1 "Lion" in 1899, the very first locomotive of the railway

SLM M-series Diesel locomotive with a mixed goods/passenger train on the Holhol viaduct in 1960

Locomotives and railcars

The rolling stock consisted of railcars and locomotives for passenger service and also locomotives for the mixed transport of goods and persons. Before 1950, the almost only source of traction was with steam-powered engines. A first diesel-powered railcar was ordered in 1938 (Fiat "Littorina" series) and from 1950 on, all ordered self-propelled units were Diesel-powered. The steam locomotives were taken out of operation some time after. Until 1951, the main supplier of heavy locomotives was Swiss Locomotive and Machine Works (SLM), in particular steam locomotives but also the first generation of diesel-powered locomotives. SLM was selected, as it was well known for the performance of its steam locomotives in mountainous areas. With 1954, the main provider of diesel-powered locomotives became Alsthom.

The four main series of locomotives were (i.) the steam-powered SLM locomotives 1-9 and 21-33 (from 1898 until the early 1950s), (ii.) the Diesel-powered SLM M-series (from 1950 until around 1990), (iii.) the Diesel-powered Alsthom BB-series (from 1954 to the present) and (iv.) to a lesser extent the diesel-electric railcars (like the Soulé railcars, from 1964 to the present). The mentioned locomotives (except the railcars) were designed to provide traction to both passenger and freight trains.

Coaches

Passenger cars came as 1^st, 2^nd with luxurious salon-sleepers and couchettes for overnight services in the first two classes and 3^rd class coaches, the latter in part wooden. Much faster was the journey by 3^rd class railcars, running on daylight only, which sometimes allowed a speed of up to 85 km/h. Passenger rail services were often mixed with freight services, those trains, often running overnight, were quite slow. After 1974 – due to political reasons - only the 3^rd class coaches and railcars were retained on the railway.

A special train was the imperial train until 1974, dedicated to His Majesty, the emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia. This train consisted of two locomotives, a baggage car with a diesel generator for the whole train, four imperial carriages for the emperor and his family (lounge, sleeping compartments, offices, kitchen and restaurant), two salon-sleeper cars 1^st class for guests of the Royal family and government officials and two 2^nd passenger cars for the tross of the emperor.

A large variety of freight wagons was and is in operation, covered freight wagons, gondolas, uncovered ones, tank wagons, flat cars for containers, motorail cars, livestock transporters. Until 1987, some of the freight wagons could carry nine tonnes while others could do 30 tonnes. In 1987, new freight wagons were ordered, all of them being able to carry at least 30 tonnes, some of them up to 40 tonnes.

Railway stations

See also: Railway stations in Ethiopia

See also: Railway stations in Djibouti

The Addis Ababa La Gare train station.

Present station of the Djibouti-Ethiopia Railway in Dire Dawa.

Djibouti City Railway station

Most stations along the railway were characterized by a passing loop, other station lines, from 1898 until roughly 1960 by water towers for the re-supply of the tenders for the steam locomotives. In addition, most stations had a small railway building that did not necessarily serve as a station building for passenger traffic. Dedicated railway stations with a single platform and station facilities for travellers were present at only three stations along the railway: Addis Ababa 'La Gare' Railway station, Dire Dawa train station and Djibouti City Railway station. The Djibouti City Railway station was built in 1900, the current Dire Dawa Railway station in 1910 and the Addis Ababa railway station in its current form in 1929. The Dire Dawa railway station became the main railway station along the entire railway, as almost all central facilities (maintenance workshops etc.) are located here. In the year 2018, only the Dire Dawa Railway station remains functional, the Addis Ababa railway station might become a museum (a small railway museum is already there) while the future of the Djibouti City railway station is uncertain.

Railway specifications

Further information: Rail transport in Ethiopia

The Ethio-Djibouti Railway was based on French railway technologies. The ballast bed for the rails was made by crushed stone, usually 4m wide. Almost all original steel rails and steel sleepers used between 1898-1917 were made in French steel factories. Later rehabilitation works until 1975 also exclusively used French steel materials for rails and sleepers. After 1975, basic repairs / rehabilitations did not happen anymore. From 2007-2012, an EU-funded rehabilitation program took place. This last rehabilitation program set up two factories in Ethiopia for sleepers and steel elements like rails, one in Dukem (steel elements) and one in Dire Dawa (concrete sleepers).

• Gauge: Metre gauge
• Railway total length
  • in 1902: 311 km (Djibouti-Dire Dawa)
  • 1917-2004: 784 km (Djibouti-Addis Ababa) plus approx. 25 km of station and service lines
  • 2004-2014: 311 km (Djibouti-Dire Dawa)
  • since 2014: 213 km (Guelile-Dire Dawa)
• Permitted railway axle load (not taking problems due to lack of maintenance into account)
  • 1898-1947: 8 tonnes
  • 1947-2010: 9.5-12.5 tonnes
  • 2012-2014: 12.5-17 tonnes
  • since 2014: 16-17 tonnes
• On the entire railway, different rails with different load capabilities (given as rail weight in kg/m) did exist during the times:
  • 1898-1947: 20-25 kg/m
  • 1947-2010: 20-25-30 kg/m
  • since 2012: 30-36-40 kg/m
• Minimum railway curve radius:
  • 1898-2014: 200 meters, 150 meters at difficult locations; one curve with 100 meter
  • since 2014: 200 meters
• Maximum (ruling) gradient: 1.35 % (at difficult locations 2.7 % with double-locomotive operation)
• Target speed (on straight sections): 90 km/h (passenger trains), 65 km/h (freight trains) – but in practice and for a safe operation the speed was most often kept at 45 km/h and below.
• Targeted maximum train load (freight): 300 tonnes (at a speed of 15 km/h at high railway gradients)
• Bridges, viaducts and culverts: 1918 pieces, 187 of them viaducts and steel bridges (over 784 km)
• Major bridges and viaducts: Chebele viaduct (156 m long), Holhol viaduct (138 m long), Awash River bridge (151 m long, 60 m deep)
• Tunnels: 1 (170 m length, through the 'Col du Harr' northeast of Dire Dawa)

Route of Addis Ababa-Djibouti Railway compared to the Ethio-Djibouti Railway

Railway history

Origins (before 1897)

Alfred Ilg and his family at the train station in Dire Dawa

The Imperial Railway Company of Ethiopia (French: Compagnie Impériale des Chemins de fer d'Éthiopie or Compagnie Impériale Éthiopienne) was a firm founded in 1894 to build and operate a railway across eastern Ethiopia from the port of Djibouti to the capital of Addis Ababa. It was founded by Alfred Ilg and Léon Chefneux and headquartered in Paris, France.

Discussion of an Ethiopian railway was initiated by Alfred Ilg, an advisor to Emperor Menelek II. He had attempted to interest the previous emperor and other Ethiopian political figures in the construction of a railway to replace the six-week mule trek between the capital and the French port city, but had no success. When Menelek acceded to the throne in 1889, negotiations began anew and a decree was granted on February 11, 1893, to study the construction of rail line. Ilg, a Swiss citizen, and a number of French associates put together a firm and received a royal charter on March 9, 1894, enabling them to start work. Menelek resisted personally putting any funds into the venture, but did grant a 99-year lease to Ilg and his associates in return for a number of shares in the firm and half of all profits in excess of 3,000,000 francs. Furthermore, the firm was obliged to construct a telegraph line along the route.

1st Construction phase (1897-1901)

It took until 1897 before the necessary permission from French authorities was received, by which time significant opposition in Ethiopia had materialized. The emperor himself was irate at the involvement of the French government, which had offered to fund the line, and there were popular demonstrations against it. There was also opposition from the British legation in Addis Ababa, which feared a reduction in traffic to the port of Zeila in British Somaliland. These fears proved well-founded: even half-finished, without links to either Harar or Addis Ababa, the railroad quickly eclipsed the port's former caravan-based trade.

The firm also had difficulty selling its shares in Europe. Robert Le Roux campaigned for the line at municipal chambers of commerce around France, but investor interest was restrained and Menelek was opposed to offers of direct involvement by the French government. All in all, the initial stock offering only earned 8,738,000 francs of the 14 million projected, and an additional offering of 25.5 million francs of bonds yielded only 11,665,000 francs. This was far too little to complete the line. Despite the shortfall, construction began in October 1897 from Djibouti, a hitherto minor port that expanded primarily to serve the railway.

A crew of Arab and Somali workers, overseen by Europeans, began to press inland with the line and its associated telegraph. Ethiopians were hired largely as security forces, to prevent the theft of materials on the line. This was also an important source of corruption for the primarily French administration, which fabricated incidents of sabotage and requested funds to buy off local chiefs that it claimed were responsible for it. Furthermore, the line was forced to avoid interfering with local communities and water sources, pushing it out into the desert. This meant that the railway company had to build aqueducts, an additional unplanned expense, to serve the line.

Even before reaching the Ethiopian border, it was clear the firm had serious financial problems. A group of British investors calling themselves the New Africa Company effectively took control of the firm over several years. They provided a new source of capital, and by 1901 had joined with the French investors to form the International Ethiopian Railway Trust and Construction Company – a holding firm which essentially controlled the railway and supplied it with further capital. The first commercial service began in July 1901, from Djibouti to Dire Dawa.

Completion (1901-1917)

The mixture of French and British interests proved volatile, as each group of investors stood increasingly for both national and commercial interests. Both governments became interested in monopolizing Ethiopian trade and conspired to force the other into a minor position. The demands and threats of the two governments led Emperor Menelek in 1902 to forbid the expansion of the railway line to Harar. French negotiations to resume work were blocked by Menelek's growing suspicion of French motives, and the line could not earn enough to pay back the company's debts with such a limited service.

The signature of the Entente Cordiale in 1904 reopened the possibility of continued joint Anglo-French investment and development, but there was enough resistance to such proposals on both sides that no progress was made. The firm went formally bankrupt in 1906. Ethiopia The portion it had completed ran from Djibouti to just short of Harar, the principal entrepôt for existing commerce in southern Ethiopia. During the era of Emperor Menelik II the Somali clans Issa and Gadabursi were among the railway workers when the Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway was under construction and greatly benefited from it. Also Its terminus evolved into the city of Dire Dawa, today a larger city than Harar itself.

Following the 1906 Tripartite Treaty between Italy, France, and Britain and the 1908 Klobukowski Treaty between France and Ethiopia, Menelek consented to further expansion of the railway, granting the new concession to his personal physician, a black Guadaloupean named Dr. Vitalien, on 30 January 1908. The assets of the former company were then transferred to a new firm, the Franco-Ethiopian Railway (Compagnie du Chemin de Fer Franco-Éthiopien), which received a new concession to finish the line to Addis Ababa. After a year of wrangling with the previous financiers and their governments, construction began anew. By 1915 the line reached Akaki, only 23 kilometers from the capital, and two years later came all the way to Addis Ababa itself.

Operation (1917-1936)

After having reached Addis Ababa, construction of railways stopped. The original plans from 20 years before foresaw an extension of the railway from Addis Ababa to the Didessa River near Jimma to have full access to the main coffee-producing areas of Ethiopia, but that plan was srapped already years before the completion of the railway at Addis Ababa. in 1929, the main train station in Addis Ababa, the Legehar train station, was completed and started operation.

Italian occupation and World War II (1936-1945)

Ethiopia's share in the railway was seized by the Italian government in the Second Italo-Abyssinian War (1936), but was regained by Ethiopia after the World War II. During the period when Ethiopia was under Italian rule, the property remained in any case with the Anglo-French company, which used steam trains of the Krupp type, which took approximately 36 hours for the 784 km. Following the Italian conquest, the speeding of trains was increased with the introduction from 1938 of rolling stock produced by Ansaldo and Breda, and four self-propelled large capacity 'type 038' trains derived from the model "Fiat ALn 56": the travel time went down to nearly 30 hours.

The Italian "Addis Ababa Regulatory Plan of 1938" anticipated the extension of the railway with the creation of three railway stations in the city of Addis Ababa which replaced the old station (Legehar), destined to be demolished. In addition and starting in 1936 already, the Italian administration foresaw the construction of several new railways: the Addis Ababa–Dessie–Massaua Railway, the Gondar–Dessie–Assab Railway and the Addis Ababa–Dollo–Mogadishu Railway. This did not happen any more, as the projects of connection with the Eritrean network were abandoned, due to the outbreak of the World War II. Following the British occupation of Ethiopia in the late spring of 1941, the railway line was temporarily closed from 1941 to 1944.

Post-World War II

Under the leadership of Yacob Zanios who was President and Assefa Gebre Mariam, the Vice President, the highest ranking Ethiopian employees of the railway, they organized one of the first labor unions in Ethiopia in 1947, the Railroad Workers Syndicate of Dire Dawa, for mutual welfare purposes. Although its leadership co-operated with the Government, a violent strike in 1949 demanding better wages, benefits, and working conditions was brutally suppressed by government troops; at the time, all strikes were seen by government officials as a form of insurrection. Yacob Zanios was fire by the French and as a means to settle the workers' demands that he be re-instated and to settle the strike, HIM the Emperor Haile Sellassie appointed Yacob to a position in his Special Cabinet and transferred him to Addis Ababa.

Many years later, Yacob became Director General of the Railway system and launched an ambitious plan to extend the railway system and oversaw surveys for extending its line 310 kilometers south from Adama to Dilla between 1960 and 1963. The government formed a Nazareth-Dilla Railway Development Corporation to support this new branch. Although the French government offered a loan to fund this new branch in 1965, and Yugoslav experts had studied and thought the project would be worthwhile, this project was never carried out.

Following the independence of Djibouti in 1977, the French share in the railway was transferred to the new nation. Around 1982, the railway was subsequently reorganized as the Ethio-Djibouti Railways (Compagnie du Chemin de Fer Djibouto-Éthiopien).

Decline

After World War II, the railway began a long period of decline. Traffic on the railway dropped in half from 1953 to 1957, as road transport began to compete for cargo. In 1975, the volume on the route still amounted to 450,000 tonnes of freight and 1.4 million passengers.

The Ogaden War of 1977–1978 dealt a further blow to the railway, as Somali troops invaded Ethiopia and captured the railway as far as Dire Dawa. Portions of the railway were blown up in the war, and railway operations were again cut in half. After the war ended, the railway continued to decline from a lack of maintenance and attacks from rebels such as the Ogaden Liberation Front. One of the worst and deadly train accidents worldwide then happened in January 1985, when an express train derailed on the main bridge of the railway, the Awash River bridge near Awash, with all four passenger coaches plunging 60 meters deep into the gorge resulting in the death of 429 passengers, the so-called Awash rail disaster.

Despite all these blows to the railway, the 1986 annual freight transport still amounted to 336,000 tonnes with ~1,000,000 passengers that year. In the following years, the traffic on the railway dropped further. Both the lack of maintenance and an ambitious road construction program made rail transport increasingly non-competitive. In the 16 years until 2002, freight volumes had dropped to 207,000 tonnes and the number of passengers dropped by almost 50% to 501,000. In 2007, a study came to the conclusion, that rail transport between Djibouti and Addis Ababa did cost 55 US$ per tonne while road transport had the advantage of costs of only 30 US$ per tonne.

Railway traffic between Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa was stopped in 2004 as the conditions along the railway grew inferior, so that a safe operation wasn't possible anymore. Railway traffic between Dire Dawa and Djibouti, however, continued.

Partial rehabilitation (2002-2014)

Sign for Djibouti-Ethiopia Railway Line Rehabilitation Project (Dire Dawa station)

The governments of Ethiopia and Djibouti pursued foreign aid to rehabilitate the railway. The European Commission prepared a grant of EUR 40 million in 2003 and raised it to EUR 50 million in 2006. On November 29, 2006, an agreement was signed with the Italian consortium Consta, and work began in 2007 on sections of the line that deteriorated following the Ogaden War.

Before the rehabilitation, rail transport between Djibouti and Addis Ababa did cost 55 US$ per tonne while road transport had the advantage of costs of only 30 US$ per tonne. After the rehabilitation, costs were expected to drop below 20 US$ per tonne for decades to come, making rail transport much more competitive than road transport.

As a special feature of the rehabilitation, it focused on the replacement of all existing rails with a strength of only 20-25 kg/m, these were replaced by those with a strength of 40 kg/m, effectively doubling the allowed axle load of the trains on the railway line to 17 tons per axle. It was considered to replace almost 50% of the 784 km of rails and also repairing or replacing a total of 49 damaged steel bridges.

In 2006, the South African firm Comazar was chosen to receive a 25-year concession. However, this plan was not executed, and in early 2008, it was announced that the railway was in negotiations with the Kuwaiti company Fouad Alghanim and Sons Group.

Addis Ababa–Dire Dawa:

Abandoned track near Adama on the section Addis Ababa-Dire Dawa in 2014

The Central Ethiopian railway section between Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa, which was out of operation since 2004, went out of service infinitely in 2008. This followed the destruction of the Gorro River railway bridge during the 2006 flash floods in the western outskirts of Dire Dawa just four kilometers west of Dire Dawa station. The EU-funded rehabilitation project stagnated and saw contractural disputes, trains did not run in Central Ethiopia and only 5 km of tracks had been rehabilitated by 2009 around Metehara.

The railway was then progressively abandoned in Central Ethiopia between Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa. The Addis Ababa railway terminal, La Gare, a century-old historical building, was threatened in 2008 by a street project to lead to its isolation or demolition but the building survived and was not demolished. The tracks between Dire Dawa and Addis Ababa fell into total disrepair despite the rehabilitation project, many of the rails were dismantled and stolen – in particular west of Metehara – in 2014. Remnants of the Gorro River bridge in Dire Dawa were finally destroyed during the 2016 floods. The new Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway was also built over the old railway line between Mieso and Addis Ababa at several locations after 2012, but these sections of the railway were abandoned already years before.

Dire Dawa–Djibouti City:
Rail service between Dire Dawa and Djibouti City was still available until August 2010, when some railway rehabilitation also started on the Ethiopian part, which effectively stopped all railway traffic in Ethiopia and Djibouti for years. At the end, all contractural disputes were solved and the rehabilitation project effectively gained pace – especially in eastern Ethiopia between Dire Dawa and the border with Djibouti. Djibouti had dropped out and did not take part in the rehabilitation project anymore. Because of all the delays, the rehabilitation works took six years instead of the originally expected three.

The railway east of Dire Dawa then went back into trial operation in 2012 after the successful rehabilitation of approx. 100 km of the tracks east of Dire Dawa. The commercial service from Djibouti to Dire Dawa was restarted in July 2013.

The service however was soon to be confined to Ethiopian territory between Dire Dawa and the Djiboutian border station of Guelile, as the new standard gauge Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway cut through the old metre gauge railway several times on Djiboutian territory in spring 2014.

Present status and future

Trains in 2018 still run on the rehabilitated line over 213 km between Dire Dawa and the border station to Djibouti at Guelile, but go almost unacknowledged by the general public. According to two reports, four diesel locomotives are still operational and a freight train (coal) is operating twice a week with 3^rd class passenger cars attached to it. The trains are travelling to Guelile in Djibouti for taking up the freight while the passenger cars will be left back at the border station of Dewele in Ethiopia. As the railway line is interrupted north of Guelile, the trains cannot go for Djibouti City. Despite the passenger rail service offered, the audience is very limited, there are usually not more than 10 passengers anymore.

If the old railway line cannot be connected as an economically viable branch line to the new standard gauge railway line, for example through a railroad transshipment facility, its days will finally be numbered. In 2018, it was announced, that 150 km of tracks from Dire Dawa to Mieso will be restored in the near future to support the regional economy with both freight and passenger services.

The Ethio-Djibouti Railways Enterprise

Ethio-Djibouti Railways also stands for the Ethio-Djibouti Railways Enterprise (French: Compagnie du Chemin de Fer Djibouto-Éthiopien (CFE)), which was a bi-national railway company for the administration and operation of the Ethio-Djibouti Railway.

The Ethio-Djibouti Railways Enterprise was established in 1981 as the successor to the Franco– Ethiopian Railway, and it was jointly owned by the governments of Ethiopia and Djibouti.

The company was headquartered in Addis Ababa; the ministers of the Djiboutian Ministry of Equipment and Transport and the Ethiopian Ministry of Transportation and Communications were the president and vice-president of the company. In 2010, the company ceased operations with Djibouti leaving, the Ethiopian part was taken over by the Ethiopian government.

The Ethio-Djibouti Railways Enterprise formally ceased to exist at the end of the year 2016, as the concession originally issued in 1894 by Emperor Menelik II of Ethiopia wasn't renewed. All the properties of the company went back into the ownership of the Ethiopian state. The concession granted in 1894 came into force for 99 years after the official opening of the railway line in the year 1917, four years after the death of the Emperor.

See also

• Rail transport in Ethiopia
• Railway stations in Ethiopia
• Kunming–Haiphong railway - a similar French-designed meter-gauge railway in Asia
• African Union
• Intergovernmental Authority on Development

References

Further reading

• Brisse, André (1901). "Djibouti et le chemin de fer du Harar". Annales de géographie (in French). 10 – via Persee.fr.
• Fontaine, Hugues (2012). Un Train en Afrique. African Train (in English and French). traduction by Yves-Marie Stranger; postface by Jean-Christophe Belliard; photographers Matthieu Germain Lambert and Pierre Javelot (bilingue français / anglais ed.). Addis Abeba: Centre Français des Études Éthiopiennes / Shama Books. ISBN 978-99944-867-1-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)
• Killion, Tom C. (1992). "Railroad Workers and the Ethiopian Imperial State: The Politics of Workers' Organization on the Franco-Ethiopian Railroad, 1919–1959". The International Journal of African Historical Studies. 25: 583–605.
• Robinson, Neil (2009). World Rail Atlas and Historical Summary. Volume 7: North, East and Central Africa. Barnsley, UK: World Rail Atlas Ltd. ISBN 978-954-92184-3-5.

External links

• Media related to Rail transport in Ethiopia at Wikimedia Commons
• Media related to Rail transport in Djibouti at Wikimedia Commons
• French website covering the history
• The Franco-Ethiopian Railway and Its History
• The Franco-Ethiopan Railway, 1936
• French website about the Djibouti-Addis Ababa train, from yesterday to today