A Century On, French-built Train In Ethiopia Still 'a Blessing'

Dire Dawa, Ethiopia, Dec 8 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 8th Dec, 2022 ) :The train pulled out of Dire Dawa station with a creak and disappeared into the pre-dawn gloom, the lights that once illuminated its decades-old carriages having stopped working long ago.

Over a century after the French laid a railroad in eastern Ethiopia, the old track remains indispensable for trade and transport, even with the recent arrival of a modern, Chinese-built line.

Twice a week, passengers and cargo pile into carriages dating from 1955 to make the 12-hour, 200-kilometre (125-mile) journey by diesel locomotive from Dire Dawa to Dewele, on the border of Djibouti.

There, they trade vegetables and khat -- a mildly narcotic shrub -- for food and other items.

"We use it as transport," said a young shopkeeper who declined to give her name, and said she exchanged goods for rice, sugar, pasta, spices, tomato sauce and oil.

The journey today spans the only functioning part of the original 784-kilometre line, which once ran between Addis Ababa, the capital of landlocked Ethiopia, and Djibouti City on the Gulf of Aden.

Since 2016, a modern, electrified railway line built by China connects the two capitals in anywhere between 12 hours and 18 hours.

But in Dire Dawa, which was built by the French to accommodate rail workers with the advent of the "Franco-Ethiopian Railway", the "Chinese train" as it is locally known does not suit everyone.

- 'A blessing' - Stops along the Chinese line are outside city lines, and the ticket price is higher.

Crucially, it only makes three stops between Dire Dawa and Dewele, compared to eight along the French line.

"The (Chinese) train doesn't stop at any station near us," said the young shopkeeper.

"The railway was built along small towns and districts, and people settled near the stations," said Mulugeta Kebede, 70, a driver on the old train for four decades.

"There are places that cars can't go, and the only means of transportation is the train." Ismail Khayad, deputy general manager of the 'Dire Dawa-Dewele Railway', said the new route did not service the region in the same way the French-built line did.

"People say the old railway is a blessing; the other one is... useless for us," he said.

People have come to depend on the train as a bringer of food and other essentials, said Ayoub Asofa, 62, who mans the first stop after Dire Dawa, a shack about 10 kilometres from the city.

"This train is tied to the existence of the people," he said.

"It will affect people's daily lives if this train stops."