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Uganda Railways

Discussion in 'International Heritage Railways/Tramways' started by Roger Farnworth, May 12, 2018.

  1. Roger Farnworth

    Roger Farnworth Member

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    The second covers the length to the end of the branch-line.

    https://rogerfarnworth.wordpress.com/2018/06/03/uganda-railways-part-17-gulu-to-arua
     
  2. Roger Farnworth

    Roger Farnworth Member

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    We have now returned to the mainline at Tororo and are heading on toward Kampala.

    The story continues .... "We leave Tororo is a north-westerly direction following the contours on the north side of the Nagongera Road as far as Achilet (about 5 kilometres outside of Tororo). For the next 10 kilometres the railway stays north of the road until reaching Nagongera, or Nagongora, .............."

    https://rogerfarnworth.wordpress.com/2018/06/05/uganda-railways-part-18-tororo-to-jinja

    Of interest is the number of railway lines on the map between Tororo and Jinja. There is by far the greatest density of lines in Uganda.
     
  3. Roger Farnworth

    Roger Farnworth Member

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    The journey continues from Jinja to Kampala .......

    “The Nile River Bridge at Jinja was built in the late 1920s. It is perhaps the iconic structure for the whole of the metre-gauge railway system from Mombasa to Kasese.

    The first railway in Uganda ran from Jinja to Namasagali on the Victoria Nile where a steamer service ran on to Masindi Port. From there passengers travelled by road through Masindi to Butiaba on Lake Albert. From there they could travel on by steamer to the Belgian Congo or north to Juba in the Sudan.

    Train passengers from Kenya reached Uganda by steamer from the railhead at Kisumu and across Lake Victoria to Entebbe or Port Bell. In the mid 1920s the main line in Kenya was extended from Nakuru through Eldoret, and Tororo to Mbulamuti where it met up with the original Jinja to Namasagali line. The new line to Kampala then crossed the Nile at Jinja by a bridge carrying both the railway and a roadway underneath.”

    https://rogerfarnworth.wordpress.com/2018/06/07/uganda-railways-part-19-jinja-to-kampala

    The last part of my own journey to Kampala by train in 1994 commenced once a derailed freight train had been rerailed ahead of us and the passenger train was ‘given the road'. We had waited for over 6 hours at Jinja Railway Station. Travelling by rail was unreliable but really enjoyable!!
     
  4. Roger Farnworth

    Roger Farnworth Member

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    This post (below) is the penultimate post on the direct route from Mombasa to Kasese. After this there will be three further posts. One to complete the line to Kasese, one to review an old and defunct branch line running north from Jinja and a final post which will seek to cover the locomotives and rolling stock on the Uganda Railway .....

    https://rogerfarnworth.wordpress.com/2018/06/10/uganda-railways-part-20-kampala
     
  5. Roger Farnworth

    Roger Farnworth Member

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    This next post relates to the western extension of the Uganda Railway through to Kasese and the Kilembe Mines. (I am expecting to post twice more about the Uganda Railway. There is one branchline which I have to follow and then I plan to write about the locomotives and rolling stock on the line.)

    https://rogerfarnworth.wordpress.com/2018/06/11/uganda-railways-part-21-kampala-to-kasese
     
  6. Roger Farnworth

    Roger Farnworth Member

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    This is the last post relating directly to the lines of the Uganda Railway and covers the first railway built in Uganda. The final post on the Uganda Railway will cover the locomotives and rolling stock on the network.

    https://rogerfarnworth.wordpress.com/2018/06/12/uganda-railways-part-22-jinja-via-mbulamuti-to-namasagali

    There is much to explore in the Great Lakes region in Africa! This series of posts relates only to the railways providing access to Uganda but there were a whole variety of different transport services in the area which would warrant further study!
     
    Last edited: Jun 13, 2018
  7. torgormaig

    torgormaig Part of the furniture Friend

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    Roger - thanks for posting such an interesting resume on the history and current state of play of the old Kenya and Uganda railways. I visited this facinating part of the world back in 1984 and the enclosed pictures of the Uganda railway may be of interest. 84-3-26 4 73u05 Kampala Station copy.jpg
    The then daily 16.00 train to Kasese stands ready in Kampala station for its overnight journey west with loco 73u05 26/3/84 84-3-30 73u08 Kasese Station copy_edited-1.jpg
    Kasese station looking west towards the old loco shed and Ruwenzori Mountains beyond. It is midday and the pilot loco, 73u08, waits for the arrival of the overnight train from Kampala, which was due several hours earlier. 30/3/84 84-4-5 73u08 dep Kampala copy.jpg
    Here the 16.00hrs overnight train to Kasese sets out from Kampala behind 73u08 on 5/4/84. Taken from the Entebe Road bridge, I suspect that this part of Kampala is more heavily built up now.

    I was sorry, but not surprised, to hear that this line has long since closed. Like you I never traveled west of Kampala by train, but spent a long weekend out west in the Queen Elizabeth National Park. As I recall, travelling there by landrover was almost as rough as going by train, such was the state of road disrepair at that time.

    Hope these are of interest

    Peter James
     
  8. Roger Farnworth

    Roger Farnworth Member

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    Peter,

    Thank you so much. Yes, Kampala has changed markedly in the years since my first visit in 1994. The view you have taken from the Entebbe Road bridge is much different now. Traffic is also probably considerably worse than you will remember.

    I will add your comments and pictures to my blog if that is OK.

    Roger
     
  9. torgormaig

    torgormaig Part of the furniture Friend

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    Please do Roger. I'll post some views of surviving, albeit derelict, steam locos on Kampala shed in a few days.

    I hope the condition of the roads has improved in the last 30+ years. The pot holes were more like bomb craters!

    Peter
     
  10. Roger Farnworth

    Roger Farnworth Member

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    Last edited: Jun 13, 2018
  11. torgormaig

    torgormaig Part of the furniture Friend

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    Steam operation finished in Uganda in August 1980 but I found that some locos still survived, if only just, in 1984. The pilot turn at Kasese was the final steam working but the locos from there had all been transferred back to Kampala for scrap by the time I visited there. At Kampala shed in March '84 I found the following:- 84-3-26 2 3114 3122 (3111) Kampala Shed copy.jpg This view shows class 31 2-8-4 3114 on one road (behind the tender of 3109 which was also still in tact) while alongside it is 3122. In front of this are the dismembered remains of 3111 while Garratt 6012 is visible behind it. 26/3/84 84-3-26 6012 73u05 Kampala Shed copy.jpg A closer view of 6012 on Kampala shed with the loco for the Kasese train, 73u05, on the next road. Both 6012 and 3122 behind it were marked up as "reserved for museum", a scheme that appears never to have come to fruition. 26/3/84 84-3-26 3 6017 Kampala Shed copy.jpg At the other end of the shed was the partially dismantled remains of another Garratt, 6017, whose boiler had been cut up in situ. Nearby is a class 31 boiler. No other steam locos were to be seen , although there were several bashed and battered diesels scattered around the shed. 26/3/84 84-4-7 1 2401 Tororo copy.jpg The only other steam loco I saw was the origional Class 24 4-8-0 2401 lying dumped at the border station of Tororo. It had been here for several years and was not easy to examine being surrounded by long grass and a real fear of snakes. There is "another" 2401, preserved in the Nairobi Museum, but that I believe is in reality 2412. 7/4/84

    Peter
     
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  12. Roger Farnworth

    Roger Farnworth Member

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    Thank you for the pictures, Peter. I believe you are right about the 2401 at Nairobi Railway Museum.

    Until I saw your photo at Tororo I had assumed that the original 2401 was written off at some stage a a later member of the Class then chosen to replace it as the Class leader. Is that a possibility?

    I have included on of your pictures in my next post.
     
    Last edited: Jun 17, 2018
  13. Roger Farnworth

    Roger Farnworth Member

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    My original plan was to provide details of locomotives and rolling stock on the Railway in a single post. This has become a little unwieldy so further posts will follow this one ...

    https://rogerfarnworth.wordpress.com/2018/06/17/uganda-railways-part-23-locomotives-and-rolling-stock-part-a
     
  14. torgormaig

    torgormaig Part of the furniture Friend

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    Here is the "other" 2401 in the Nairobi Railway Museum, taken two days after I photographed the one at Tororo:-
    84-4-9 2 2412 Nairobi Mus copy.jpg

    I suspect that the reason for the identity swap for 2412 was that the proper 2401 ended up with Uganda Railways when the EAR was split up, so was not available for the Kenyan museum.

    Peter
     
  15. Roger Farnworth

    Roger Farnworth Member

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    Thanks for the excellent picture of 2412/2401, Peter!
     
  16. Roger Farnworth

    Roger Farnworth Member

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    The first of these posts about locomotives and rolling stock on the railways of Uganda and Kenya covered locomotives used by the Uganda Railway. This second post primarily covers locomotives introduced by the Kenya Uganda Railway up until it handed over to the East African Railways Corporation in 1948.

    https://rogerfarnworth.wordpress.com/2018/06/19/uganda-railways-part-24-locomotives-and-rolling-stock-part-b-1927-to-19/

    The Kenya Uganda Railway introduced Beyer Garratt locomotives to the network. These were massive machines with huge pulling power which suited the lightly constructed lines on which they ran.
     
  17. huochemi

    huochemi Part of the furniture

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    Thanks Roger. Does Durrant give any more background on why certain Garratts were sold to Indochina? Does Ramaer shed any more light on this?
     
  18. Roger Farnworth

    Roger Farnworth Member

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    Hi, apologies for the delay in my reply .....

    Durrant says no more than the following .... "The first four engines, Nos 41-44, had a comparatively short life on the KUR for in August 1939 they, together with Nos 51 and 53 of the later 'EC1' Class, were shipped to Indo-China, the six engines being there numbered 201-206. Since then all trace of their fate has been lost, but they have presumably by now been scrapped."

    I have not had chance yet to check Raemer but will do so.
     
  19. Roger Farnworth

    Roger Farnworth Member

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    Raemer mentions that Nos 51 and 53 were sold to the Yunnan Railway (Appendix 2 p88).

    This may be a reference to the Yunnan to Burma Railway which ultimately was a failed British Project.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yunnan–Burma_railway

    The wikipedia article above makes no mention of the Garratts. So there is more to investigate at some time in the future!:)

    A possible alternative metre-gauge line associated with Yunnan is a line built by the french between Yunnan and Vietnam.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunming–Haiphong_railway
     
    Last edited: Jun 23, 2018
  20. huochemi

    huochemi Part of the furniture

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    Thanks Roger. Unfortunately, although Charles Small in "Far Wheels" has a chapter on the KUR / EAR, he does not deal with these Garratts. The roster info is truncated as Small notes that this info was given in the Railway Magazine. He does not mention the date but it must have been prior to 1959, the date of his book. There is a distant shot of a Garratt in service on the Yunnan Railway in "Chemins de Fer de la France d'Outre-Mer" (p131). After Pearl Harbour, there was good reason for Britain to help out with motive power for the (essentially French) Yunnan Railway but in 1939 it does not seem so likely and indeed, according to Chang Kia-Ngau, Britain was still minded to take note of what the Japanese thought of potential unfriendly actions such as providing anything that might be construed as military aid to the Chinese. It could of course have simply been a meeting of minds i.e. France wanted some more motive power and the KUR was happy to sell. My first thought was that the locos may have been intended for the Burma-Yunnan Railway, in which British had a greater interest, and discussions were underway from 1938 on this. Only a portion of that line was built and it may be that the Garratts' use on the Yunnan Railway line was intended to be temporary (the only route in was via Vietnam and the Yunnan Railway), but in the event they remained there permanently.
     

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