One thing people have long requested from me is coverage of Africa. This is, sadly, one of the few big items I never got around to tackling in a big way, for a number of reasons — lack of good photography and footage and generally hard to wrangle information among them. This isn’t uniform across a continent as vast as Africa, but I was not super interested in covering random North African tramways (there are quite a few!) because they feel a lot like random French provincial town tramways (no accident here)!

Anyways, I figured a pair of posts — one on my blog on Africa’s urban rail continent wide, and one on my Patreon on a particular system on an island in east Africa I find very interesting and incredibly obscure, was just what the doctor ordered.

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Africa is enormous, more than three times the size of Canada, and part of the reason I’ve covered it less is also that I have not travelled a ton on the continent (I’ve been to Kenya and Tanzania). This post is not going to go into explainer-level depth on any given system, but I do hope it can provide a very solid overview of the various and extremely-varied urban rail systems that exist (I’m also going to mention a bunch of rail projects in general even when they aren’t strictly urban, because there are a lot of those too!).

Let’s start in Nigeria and work our way counterclockwise.

Nigeria

Lagos Rail Mass Transit

The Lagos RMT (RMTransit?!) system is a two line “metro” where only the Blue line should really be considered an actual metro, as the Red line runs along recently-upgraded mainline rail tracks using diesel locomotive-hauled Talgo trains formerly owned by Amtrak. Lagos, with well over 15 million people, clearly should have a real solid metro system, but this is not it — in fact, the two lines are not even connected and the Blue line only skirts the centre of the dense central Lagos Island (it also mostly runs in the median of an expressway), though it still is probably the most proper “metro” line in sub-Saharan Africa. That being said, I do hope the system develops and eventually the city and rail network grow together symbiotically into what will hopefully eventually be a huge network.

Abuja Light Rail

I think with the Abuja “light rail” (probably my favourite example of the abuse of the term of light rail, for reasons you will soon understand) is basically intended to be a metro, but because it doesn’t have a working electrification system, or because one was never planned, has trains (which last time I checked run on something like hourly frequencies) pulled along by diesel locomotives. There are two “lines”, though a linear transfer is required to go from one to the other, and that’s probably because there is not a high-capacity signalling system — if there is any signalling at all, and with so few services through operation might not even make sense.

I hope these two systems highlight to you a big part of the problem with covering some of these systems, people naturally feel proud that some infrastructure is being built, but in some cases it is so poorly planned and or operated that it’s hard to see the projects not having immense negative value, in that they cost a lot to build and it’s not clear how they could ever end up moving a lot of people without a serious rethink. Thats something I of course hope these systems get, but again, it doesn’t feel like creating a serious transportation system was a huge priority here, which makes me sad.

South Africa

For a long time, South Africa had undoubtedly the most advanced and developed railway system in Africa. I think that’s changed now, but the system still is quite extensive — and even with many problems is still better than a huge portion of the rail transit systems in the world’s richest country, so that’s something!

South Africa Metrorail

Metrorail is a very interesting system of systems. There are actually four different “Metrorail” systems in South Africa, with the networks serving Durban, Cape Town, and Johannesburg / Pretoria, all being quite large with many lines, lots of branching, and good service by North American standards (think every half hour as a kind of standard). All the systems, like rail in general in South Africa, run on “Cape” gauge — which is 1067mm, the same as in Japan. The networks are mostly electrified (again more than I can say for North America) and recently even have very attractive modern EMUs as seen below.

To be clear though, these systems are far from ideal. Crime and even theft of overhead electrification cables and the like has been a major issue. Infrastructure is also often in varying states of disrepair as well — for example, some sections of the Cape Town network have big stations (which in better condition might be impressive!) with disconnected and destroyed tracks as well as facilities which are in very rough shape, and while the infrastructure is sometimes impressive with lots of grade separation and flyovers, rail lines often run in industrial areas and are surrounded by very unsupportive land use.

You’ll also note that the networks, while fairly advanced, do not feature city centre tunnels and other features that are common in wealthy countries like Germany and Australia — though I do think some sections of the Metrorails remind me of bits of Australian suburban rail. As is a trend across Africa, many of the rail lines’ origins are in extractive colonial enterprise, and so they often were not designed for longevity or to be useful passenger transport. Worse still, you can pretty clearly see what lines and facilities are meant to be used by rich people.

Gautrain

Sadly on that note it’s hard not to mention the “Gautrain” a modern regional train network in Gauteng province (where you can find Johannesburg and Pretoria) that on its surface seems really nice and cool.

The trains are modern “Electrostar” sets straight from the UK, and they travel through modern stations, along tunnels and guideways at speeds of up to 160 kph, for a time the fastest in Africa. It’s basically a world class modern European-style rail network in Africa! The Gautrain network was built for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, and if that wasn’t already setting off alarm bells it also uses standard gauge and is completely disconnected from the Gauteng Metrorail. In fact, the Gautrain network largely forms a duplicative (there are some stations that expressly serve some of the country’s wealthiest areas, which are car-oriented and not served by Metrorail) separate rail system that also like the Metrorail connects Pretoria and Johannesburg, but with an order of magnitude higher ticket prices, nicer facilities and trains, and clearly unlike Metrorail, a great effort to keep the system maintained and running well.

So basically from what I as an outsider can see looking in, Gautrain forms a defacto class-separated system (give the much higher fares) that allows wealthy people to use trains that are more modern and much nicer than those for other residents. It’s very sad stuff to see. You can read more on the system’s Wiki page here.

East Africa

Moving on to East Africa, most rail projects are not urban, but there are three major and similar projects worth discussing — the “SGR”s or Standard Gauge Railways.

The idea of these projects is hopefully self-explanatory: Again, Africa does have a lot of existing railways, but they are typically narrow gauge, in poor condition, and obviously not modern, so the idea here is to create modern railways from coastal ports inland that use standard equipment and can be used to boost trade and also to transport people.

The issue I see is firstly, as we know, typically railways are not great for both passenger and freight, and I think in these cases they are mostly freight-oriented (stations are often fairly far from populated areas). Fortunately, the projects are at least in principle all meant to eventually connect up and form an interconnected network, as well as provide tidewater access to landlocked countries. I also think they should be fairly useful given highway networks in this part of the world often aren’t great, and even when they are, traffic may not be consistently very fast; helping these countries develop trade networks with a rail backbone is also obviously good as opposed to being truck-oriented. That being said, the issue with these projects is that if knowledge isn’t successfully transferred to locals, and they aren’t commercially successful, then they amount to a lot of debt for countries which are not super able to pay it, and largely so foreign powers can try to gain influence — sometimes it’s not clear to me how different these railways will be from those that came before.

Tanzania SGR

The Tanzania SGR is a project mostly backed by American and European funding and expertise. It runs inland from Dar es Salaam, is electrified, and has a mix of old European rolling stock and new stuff from Korea’s Hyundai Rotem — including EMUs that are almost certainly better than almost anything in North America. (I guess we do have CalTrain and El Insurgente now…). Unlike the other East African SGRs, the Tanzanian one — which will eventually be nearly 2000 kilometers long, is built for 160 kph passenger operations — very much in line with international railways that aren’t explicitly high speed (and it is mixed traffic anyways).

Kenya SGR

The Kenya SGR is backed by China (who provided rolling stock, engineering, funding, and stations that look like they could be in China!) and runs over 500 kilometers from the coastal city of Mombasa to Nairobi and beyond. This line maxes out at 120 kph and is unelectrified.

Ethiopia Djibouti SGR

The Ethiopia to Djibouti SGR is also backed by China, and runs the better part of 1000 kilometers from Addis Ababa to the coast in Djibouti. Like the Tanzanian SGR the line is electrified, but with lower speeds as with the Kenyan SGR.

Addis Ababa Light Rail

As it turns out, Addis Ababa also has a China backed urban “light rail” system — which feels really problematic. For starters, the system, which uses coupled-up trams from CRRC, is apparently not very reliable, with electrical and rolling stock issues. But moreover, it’s pretty clear I think that a city of like 6 million people cannot have its public transport background be two unit trams — that’s even less capacity than Toronto’s Eglinton Crosstown, which itself has far too little capacity! The system also isn’t particularly nice or well-planned: the central part is grade separated, but with ugly viaducts in the middle of the city, and the outer legs run on ballasted tracks along roadways with loads of level crossings. Service is not super frequent, and even less so when there are reliability issues, and as far as I’ve heard the system is (as expected) way over capacity.

It’s largely through the lens of this (mostly vanity?) project that I see a lot of the other “modern” railway projects in this part of Africa. Clearly infrastructure is needed, but if it’s poorly-planned, undersized, and low-quality, it might make things worse — debt, as opposed to making them better.

North Africa

North Africa already has the highest density of rail on the continent and a lot more is being built. This region has a lot of very good infrastructure and even the bad stuff isn’t all that bad. A lot of it, for historic reasons is connected to France, either because it uses French rolling stock, planning expertise, or funding.

Egypt

Egypt is working on a national combined regional, freight, and high speed rail network with Siemens. Again, a mixed network concerns me a bit, and the budget does not seem high enough to build something really great, but since Egypt already seems have and be doing better stuff railway wise than a lot of other African countries (though that’s relative — Egypt is building monorails and “LRT” that isn’t trams instead of fixing and expanding the Cairo Metro), I am slightly more confident about the prospects here.

Cairo Metro

As I just mentioned, Cairo has a metro, which is probably the most densely-used in the world with over 2 million riders a day over just 84 stations. The system has just three lines intersecting in a triangle transfer, and doesn’t cover a lot of the city, instead being focused on certain sectors. I’d say there it’s all pretty standard stuff, though Line 1 has historically used the same trains as the RER B (a French connection) trains, which I think is super interesting. Fortunately all the lines are seemingly getting new rolling stock.

While there are plans for a new line 4, instead of building like five more metro lines (which Cairo obviously would benefit from), the government is building a distinct monorail subsystem (think DLR) in New Cairo with 70 stations. There is also the new “LRT”, which is a super odd system connecting an outer leg of the metro (with a silly linear) to the “New Administrative Capital” with what is really modern fast Chinese suburban rail.

Now, Cairo and Alexandria do both have trams, though I would basically call it a technicality because as far as I know both these systems like Kolkata, use extremely dated vehicles and are kind of falling apart.

Algeria

Algeria is just crazy, for reasons I think you’ll soon understand.

Algiers Metro and Tram

Algeria’s capital of Algiers has a population of roughly 3 million people, and a modern French-origin metro line that opened in 2011 (after many years of plans and the like). The city also has a modern French-style tram system.

Speaking of which, there are seven cities in Algeria with modern French tram lines. Of course Algiers, but also many cities I have not heard of such as Setif, Ouargla, Oran, Sidi Bel Abbès, and Constantine!

Interestingly, these systems were supported by the French and all built by Turkish contractors (who also worked on the Tanzania SGR), who are quite famous for their cost effective builds, as covered by the Transit Costs Project.

Morocco

Morocco is sort of similar to Algeria in that it has a load of French tramways, but instead of being spread across the country, they are concentrated in just two cities; Rabat, which has two lines, and Casablanca, which has an impressive four-line network (starting to feel a bit like Lyon, and maybe time to start thinking about metro!)

What’s also clear is that these are really high-quality systems, something you can tell from the wayfinding, which is world class and better than much of what you would find in not just North America, but… the world.

I should also mention that while not quite trams, Marrakesh does have a very cool range-extended trolleybus BRT system!

High-Speed Rail

Of course, if you’re at all familiar with rail in Morocco, you’ll know they have a very impressive high-speed rail system, which connects Casablanca and Rabat (very nice stations I might add) — known as “Al Boraq”. This is naturally a French TGV standards system, and it uses Euroduplex rolling stock for Africa’s first world-class high-speed rail line — something faster than anything outside of Asia and Europe. It’s all very impressive.

And the larger ONCF network is naturally also a lot better than anything in the America’s. A good portion of it is electrified, there are lots of regional service, and some modern rolling stock, and there is even a surprisingly nice link into the Casablanca airport!

Senegal

Rounding out our tour, we have Senegal in West Africa.

Dakar TER

I remember first seeing African news coverage of the Dakar TER (I am sure you can tell who helped get that built based on the name), which is a semi-frequent regional service with modern European-style multiple unit trains — nicer than anything in the Americas.

Future

There are also a number of systems planned for the future, though it’s hard to say which will actually come to fruition, since more than most places, Africa has a lot of plans put on ice and projects which have started, but not finished construction.

The largest city in Ivory Coast — Adijan is meant to get a fully-elevated metro built with assistance from France. Angola, Uganda, and the island of Reunion are also all talking about modern tramways. I would also expect a virtuous cycle of additional builds and expansion across the various cities I mentioned in North Africa!

Africa does actually have one other odd and modern tram system on an island you may not be familiar with — Mauritius, and to read more about that, go my post on Patreon (support is much appreciated, and for some time I’ve had some amount of posts exclusively on there!).