History of rail transport in Malawi

Background

From the 1890s, small river steamers operated between Chinde at the mouth of the Zambezi and Chiromo on the Lower Shire River, a distance of 180 miles. However, the main areas of economic activity in the BCA were around Blantyre in the Shire Highlands, over 50 miles from Chiromo, and transport to the river was costly and inefficient. Steamers also navigated the Upper Shire and Lake Nyasa (now Lake Malawi), but about 50 miles of the Middle Shire was impassable. Railways could supplement water transport and, as the BCA was nowhere nearer than 200 miles to a suitable Indian Ocean port, a short rail link to river ports was more practical than a line direct to the coast.

Early railways

Low Shire River levels after 1896 made water transport more difficult. In 1901, the Shire Highlands Railway Company was formed by Blantyre-based investors. It soon obtained a concession to build a railway from Port Herald (now Nsanje) on the Shire River at the southernmost point of the protectorate, to Fort Johnston (now Mangochi), at the southern end of Lake Nyasa, via Chiromo and Blantyre. The first section of this line, between Port Herald and Chiromo, was handed over to traffic on 1 September 1904.

Further construction of the railway was greatly hampered by a difference in elevation of more than 3,000 ft (910 m) between Chiromo and Blantyre. The difficulties were so severe that the Shire Highlands Railway ran out of funds, with the consequence that another company, the British South Africa Company, assumed the task of completing the section, which was finally opened on 23 January 1909. Additional reductions in the Shire River’s flow made Port Herald unsatisfactory, so a Zambezi port was needed. In 1914, the British South Africa Company built the Central African Railway of 61 miles from Port Herald to Chindio on the north bank of the Zambezi. From there, goods went by river steamers to Chinde then by sea to Beira, involving three transhipments and delays. The Central African Railway was poorly built, and soon needed extensive repairs.

Trans-Zambezia Railway

In the early 20th century, Beira developed as a major port: it was far superior to Chinde, which was severely damaged by a cyclone in 1922. The Trans-Zambezia Railway, constructed between 1919 and 1922, ran 167 miles from the south bank of the Zambezi to join the main line from Beira to Rhodesia. Its promoters had interests in Beira port, and they ignored its high cost and limited benefit to Nyasaland or a shorter alternative route to the small port of Quelimane. River transport was practically defunct after 1935. The only recorded traffic on the Shire River within Nyasaland was a seasonal service run by the Shire Highlands Railway for the collection of cotton and other produce between Chiromo and Chikwawa.

The Zambezi crossing remained the weak point in the link to Beira. The ferry used old steamers towing barges and its capacity was limited. For two months a year the river was too shallow, at other times it flooded. In 1935, the ferry was replaced by the construction of the Zambezi Bridge, over two miles long, creating an uninterrupted rail link to the sea. In this year, a northern extension from Blantyre to Lake Nyasa was completed, and a terminal for Lake Services was developed.

Colonial railway operations

Unfortunately, the Zambezi Bridge and northern extension to Lake Nyasa created less traffic than anticipated, and it was only in 1946 that the traffic levels predicted in 1937 were reached. By this time, motor transport was becoming an alternative to rail, but government regulations designed to promote the use of the railway hindered the development of road transport. All the rail lines were narrow gauge and single track, and the Shire Highlands Railway in particular had sharp curves and steep gradients, so the system was inadequate for heavy train loads. Maintenance costs were high and freight volumes were low, so freight rates were up to three times those of Rhodesian and East African lines.

Independent Malawi

Although costly and inefficient, the rail link to Beira remained a main bulk transport link until 1979 when it was destroyed by RENAMO forces in the civil war. By then, Malawi had its second rail link to the Mozambique port of Nacala, which is its principal route for imports and exports today.