The Mauritania Railway is the national railway of

Mauritania Mauritania, officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a sovereign country in Maghreb, Northwest Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Western Sahara to Mauritania–Western Sahara border, the north and northwest, ...

. Construction of the line began in 1960, with its opening in 1963. It consists of a single,

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

line linking the

iron Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's o ...

mining center of

Zouérat Zouérat () is the largest town in northern Mauritania and the capital of the Tiris Zemmour region, with an approximate population of 62,380 (2023). It lies at the eastern end of the Mauritania Railway to Nouadhibou. History The town devel ...

with the port of

Nouadhibou Nouadhibou (; , ), formerly named Port-Étienne, is the second largest city in Mauritania and serves as a major commercial center. The city has about 173,000 inhabitants. It is situated on a 65-kilometre peninsula or headland called Ras Nouadhibou ...

, via Fderik and

Choum Choum () is a town in northern Mauritania, lying in the Adrar Region close to the border with Western Sahara. In the year 2000, Choum had a population of 2,735. History The town grew from its position on trans-Saharan trading routes. I ...

. The state agency Société nationale industrielle et minière (SNIM) controls the railway line. Since the closure of the Choum Tunnel, a section of the railway cuts through the

Polisario Front The Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Río de Oro (Spanish language, Spanish: ; ), better known by its acronym Polisario Front, is a Sahrawi nationalism, Sahrawi nationalist liberation movement seeking to end the occupatio ...

- controlled part of the

Western Sahara Western Sahara is a territorial dispute, disputed territory in Maghreb, North-western Africa. It has a surface area of . Approximately 30% of the territory () is controlled by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR); the remaining 70% is ...

().

History

The line was a success and provided a major portion of Mauritania's GDP; as a result, the line was nationalized in 1974. Following Mauritania's annexation of southern

in 1976, the line came under constant attack by Polisario militia, effectively putting the line out of use and thereby crippling Mauritania's economy. This played a major role in prompting the army to overthrow Mauritanian President

Moktar Ould Daddah Moktar Ould Daddah (; December 25, 1924 – October 14, 2003) was a Mauritanian politician who served as the country's first President after it gained its independence from France. Moktar served as the country's first List of prime ministers of Ma ...

in 1978, followed by a withdrawal from Western Sahara the following year. With the line now secure, repairs were conducted and trains starting using it once again in the early 1980s. This railway is unusual for its usage of the Soviet type coupler SA-3, which is quite rare in non-ex-Soviet countries.

Traffic

Train A train (from Old French , from Latin">-4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it wa ... , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles th ...

s on the railway are up to in length, making them among the longest and heaviest in the world. They consist of 2 diesel-electric EMD

locomotives A locomotive is a rail vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. Traditionally, locomotives pulled trains from the front. However, push–pull operation has become common, and in the pursuit for longer and heavier freight train ...

, 200 to 210 cars each carrying up to of iron ore, and 2-3 service cars. The total traffic averages per year. Il mitico treno del ferro al nord della Mauritania

Il mitico treno del ferro al nord della Mauritania

Passengers are also occasionally transported by train; these services are managed by an SNIM subsidiary, the société d'Assainissement, de Travaux, de Transport et de Maintenance (abb. ATTM). Passenger cars are sometimes attached to freight trains, but more often passengers simply ride atop the ore hopper cars freely. Passengers include locals, merchants, and occasionally some adventure tourists. Conditions for these passengers are incredibly harsh with daytime temperatures exceeding 40 °C, night-time temperatures approaching freezing, and death from falls being common. In January 2019, the railway resumed tourism after a ten-year hiatus; part of the track ran through a forbidden tourist area. One of the stops on the tourist route is an iron mine. The tourist route is typically operated by a locomotive carrying two passenger carriages.

Locomotives

In October 2010, SNIM ordered six EMD SD70ACS locomotives, which featured a pulse filtration system, movable sand plows, EM2000 control system and

FIRE Fire is the rapid oxidation of a fuel in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction Product (chemistry), products. Flames, the most visible portion of the fire, are produced in the combustion re ...

display system together with similar modifications to allow for operations in high temperatures. Prior to this the railway had operated US-built EMD SDL40-2 locomotives, also with special modifications to deal with operating in dusty and high temperature environments, which themselves were the replacement for twenty-one MIFERNA Class CC locomotives which had been custom-made in France to operate in the same rough conditions.

Glencore

In 2014, mining giant

Glencore Glencore plc is an Anglo-Swiss Multinational corporation, multinational commodity trading and mining company with headquarters in Baar, Switzerland, Baar, Switzerland. Glencore's oil and gas headquarters are in London, London, England as well a ...

acquired 18 years of access to SNIM's rail and port infrastructure for $1 billion, intending to link it to branch lines for new iron mines at

Askaf Askaf is an iron ore prospect in Mauritania Mauritania, officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a sovereign country in Maghreb, Northwest Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Western Sahara to Mauritania–We ...

and Guelb El Aouj. This arrangement aimed to save costs by avoiding the construction of separate tracks and facilities. Glencore withdrew from the project merely a year later, following a nearly 40% drop in the price of iron ore.

References

Notes

External links

SNIM train siteMap of railway routeThis Sahara Railway Is One of the Most Extreme in the World
(''

National Geographic ''National Geographic'' (formerly ''The National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as ''Nat Geo'') is an American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. The magazine was founded in 1888 as a scholarly journal, nine ...

''s Short Film Showcase)
Hot, free and dangerous: A train ride in Mauritania
(''

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'')
The iron trains of Mauritania
(''

Al Jazeera Al Jazeera Media Network (AJMN; , ) is a private-media conglomerate headquartered in Wadi Al Sail, Doha, funded in part by the government of Qatar. The network's flagship channels include Al Jazeera Arabic and Al Jazeera English, which pro ...

'')
Train to (almost) nowhere in Mauritania
(''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'')
Atop a long train in Africa, heading for change
(

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide writing in 16 languages. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency ...

)
The Mauritania Railway: Backbone of the Sahara, a short documentary film.Tourists back on board Mauritania's desert train
on France 24, 2019 {{Africa in topic, Rail transport in Railway lines in Mauritania Railway companies of Mauritania Transport in Western Sahara