The SGR is here: high-speed electric train connects Dar with Dodoma

After seven years and an investment of some USD 10 billion, Tanzania’s new electric Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) is finally up and running.

For all Tanzanians this is, perhaps, the nation’s greatest moment since independence from the UK in 1961. The SGR –linking Dar es Salaam with the capital Dodoma and eventually towns and cities beyond – stands as a shining symbol of nationhood and a striking embodiment of the country’s progress and modernity. A defining moment if ever there was one.

Run by state-owned Tanzania Railways Corp, the SGR operated its first train in mid-June as the 0610 eased out of Dar es Salaam’s gleaming new station, arriving in Morogoro – some 300 km away – just one hour 45 minutes later. President Dr Samia Suluhu Hassan had generously paid the fares of all the lucky passengers travelling on the inaugural service that morning. In early August and to celebrate the newly extended service to Dodoma, Mama Samia herself got to sample the three-and-a-half-hour journey from Dar.

The national rejoicing and sheer amazement at what Tanzania has achieved with the new SGR, needs to be put into context. There was time not so very long ago when the Tanzanian rail network was in sad decline. Over reliant on a limiting colonial-era metre-gauge system with mostly obsolete rolling stock, Tanzania’s railways – like those in neighbouring Kenya and Uganda – were little more than a relic of a bygone age. But in the last few years there has been a dramatic change as East African governments have recognised the importance of railways and how these could be a driver of economic growth.

By the middle of the last decade, it was clear that something radical needed to be done in Tanzania to improve the rail network and make the switch from metre to standard gauge (1,435mm) – currently used for 60 per cent of the world’s rail track. Tanzania, with a longstanding relationship with Beijing, first opted to engage the Chinese in this ambitious task and as part of that nation’s Belt and Road Initiative that was largely aimed at changing Africa’s transport infrastructure.

Investment

It took the hard-nosed instincts of late president John Pombe Magufuli (affectionately known as JPM) to realise that the Chinese-backed financing deal was not for Tanzania, and he chose not to proceed with the construction agreement signed with China by his predecessor Jakaya Kikwete. JPM instead opted to get attractive funding from Turkey and Portugal whose companies would eventually build the now complete first leg of the project – from Dar es Salaam to Dodoma.

Given the rave on-line reviews posted since the launch of the new SGR, there can’t be many who miss the apparent charm, the history, the uncertainty, the delays, the cancellations and the never quite knowing if you are going to leave on time or when you might arrive at your destination of the old metre gauge service.

But that has all changed – and how. The new SGR can effortlessly whisk passengers at 160km an hour in air-conditioned comfort three times a day from central Dar to Morogoro with only four stops along the way –making this journey a possible daily commute.

More to come

The sheer wonder of the SGR is perfectly up by local musician and regular rail user Harmonize, who recently zipped from Dar to Dodoma. Filmed enjoying the experience, he told local TV: “This is amazing. We are used to see these things on TV in Europe, etc. The train’s stylish, you just chill as you travel along.”

But Dodoma will not be the end of the line for long. The SGR still has a long way to go. The aim now is to compete four more stages of the project, which will see the track extend to Mwanza and Kigoma and then to Bujumbura, in Burundi, Kigali, in Rwanda, and ultimately to Goma in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

From a freight perspective the railway line is intended to speed the movement of goods between the port in Dar es Salaam and its domestic hinterland and beyond.

The second phase now underway covers a distance of approximately 426 km from Morogoro via Dodoma to Makutopora in the central Singida Region. No doubt further exuberant celebrations are planned across Tanzania as each stage is completed.

The new age of the train

Tanzania’s narrow-gauge rail network impressively comprised seven lines stretching 2,706 km across almost the entire country. But little by little, the loss-making but heavily subsidised national railways lost ground as would-be passengers opted for cheaper bus transport, were prepared to drive long distances in their own cars, or for the affluent few, took the plane. The train was viewed as yesterday’s mode of travel and slowly and inexorably it fell out of favour.

One country, three gauges

The upshot of the new SGR is that Tanzania now enjoys (if that’s the right word) three different rail gauges – only Brazil with four has more.

While far from ideal, this is an accident of history and politics. In addition to the old narrow gauge and the new SGR, Tanzania’s also uses the Cape gauge (1,067 mm) in the form of the TAZARA railway linking Dar es Salaam with Kapiri Mposhi in Zambia.

Ostensibly built to handle Zambian copper exports, riding the weekly TAZARA passenger train proves something of an international adventure with rail aficionados from around the world coming to Tanzania just for the two-night experience (and it can be a real experience) across 1,860km of Africa.