Railway Mogadiscio-Villabruzzi - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Mogadiscio-Villabruzzi Railway (Italian

Italian language

Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

: Ferrovia Mogadiscio-Villabruzzi) was the railway of Italian Somaliland

Italian Somaliland

Italian Somaliland , also known as Italian Somalia, was a colony of the Kingdom of Italy from the 1880s until 1936 in the region of modern-day Somalia. Ruled in the 19th century by the Somali Sultanate of Hobyo and the Majeerteen Sultanate, the territory was later acquired by Italy through various...

, and connected the capital of Somalia

Somalia

Somalia , officially the Somali Republic and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic under Socialist rule, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. Since the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in 1991 there has been no central government control over most of the country's territory...

with the Shebelle river agricultural areas from 1914 to 1941.

History

It was built initially for the surrounding area of Mogadishu

Mogadishu

Mogadishu , popularly known as Xamar, is the largest city in Somalia and the nation's capital. Located in the coastal Benadir region on the Indian Ocean, the city has served as an important port for centuries....

(Mogadiscio in Italian

Italian language

) after World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. In the 1920s, H.R.H. Principe

Prince

Prince is a general term for a ruler, monarch or member of a monarch's or former monarch's family, and is a hereditary title in the nobility of some European states. The feminine equivalent is a princess...

Luigi Amedeo, Duca degli Abruzzi

Luigi Amedeo, Duke of the Abruzzi

Prince Luigi Amedeo Giuseppe Maria Ferdinando Francesco di Savoia-Aosta , Duke of the Abruzzi , was an Italian nobleman, mountaineer and explorer of the royal House of Savoy...

, a senior member of the Italian Royal Family

House of Savoy

The House of Savoy was formed in the early 11th century in the historical Savoy region. Through gradual expansion, it grew from ruling a small county in that region to eventually rule the Kingdom of Italy from 1861 until the end of World War II, king of Croatia and King of Armenia...

, had the railway extended to the Shebelle River

Shebelle River

The Shebelle River begins in the highlands of Ethiopia, and then flows southeast into Somalia towards Mogadishu. Near Mogadishu, it turns sharply southwest, where it follows the coast. Below Mogadishu, the river becomes seasonal...

colonial villages he was then developing.

The line, 114 km long, reached Villabruzzi (then in full "Villaggio Duca degli Abruzzi", now "Jowhar

Jowhar

Jowhar is the capital town of the Shabeellaha Dhexe region of Somalia . Along with Baidoa, it used to form the joint administrative capital of the Transitional Federal Government, which captured it from the Islamic Courts Union....

") in 1928. The original proposal was for the railway to go on from Villabruzzi to the Somali border with Ethiopia

Ethiopia

Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

and into the Ogaden

Ogaden

Ogaden is the name of a territory comprising the southeastern portion of the Somali Regional State in Ethiopia. The inhabitants are predominantly ethnic Somali and Muslim. The title "Somali Galbeed", which means "Western Somalia," is often preferred by Somali irredentists.The region, which is...

, but the Second Italo-Abyssinian War

Second Italo-Abyssinian War

The Second Italo–Abyssinian War was a colonial war that started in October 1935 and ended in May 1936. The war was fought between the armed forces of the Kingdom of Italy and the armed forces of the Ethiopian Empire...

in 1936 stopped further construction.

In 1939 the Italian leader Benito Mussolini

Benito Mussolini

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....

planned road and rail connections between Mogadiscio and Addis Ababa

Addis Ababa

Addis Ababa is the capital city of Ethiopia...

, but only the road ("La Strada Imperiale") was built before World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

destroyed the Italian Empire

Italian Empire

The Italian Empire was created after the Kingdom of Italy joined other European powers in establishing colonies overseas during the "scramble for Africa". Modern Italy as a unified state only existed from 1861. By this time France, Spain, Portugal, Britain, and the Netherlands, had already carved...

. However, a small "decauville

Decauville

The Decauville manufacturing company was founded by Paul Decauville , a French pioneer in industrial railways. Decauville's major innovation was the use of ready-made sections of light, narrow gauge track fastened to steel sleepers; this track was portable and could be disassembled and transported...

" railway of 200 km was built between Villabruzzi and the border with Ethiopia

Ethiopia

in order to solve the logistical problems related to the occupation of Ethiopia.

In 1941 the railway was dismantled by the British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

troops when they conquered the "Africa Orientale Italiana". Since then the railway, except for a few tracks within Mogadishu harbour, was no longer used. In 1942 some diesel locomotives and related materials were moved by the British Government to Eritrea

Eritrea

Eritrea , officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea derives it's name from the Greek word Erethria, meaning 'red land'. The capital is Asmara. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast...

, to be used on the Massawa-Asmara railway

Eritrean Railway

The Eritrean Railway is the only railway system in Eritrea. It was constructed between 1887 and 1932 by the Kingdom of Italy for the Italian colony of Eritrea, and connected the port of Massawa with Bishia near the Sudan border. The line was essentially destroyed by warfare in subsequent decades,...

.

In the 1980s, the Somalian president Siad Barre

Siad Barre

Mohamed Siad Barre was the military dictator and President of the Somali Democratic Republic from 1969 to 1991. During his rule, he styled himself as Jaalle Siyaad ....

proposed the reactivation of the railway, but his fall in 1991 stopped the possible reconstruction.

Statistics

The railway in 1930 moved 19.359 passengers, and was used by even for tourism. In the same year 43.467 tons of products (mainly agricultural) were transported, with earnings up to 1.591.527 Lira somala

Italian Somaliland lira

The lira was the currency of Italian Somaliland between 1925 and ca. 1938. It replaced the Italian Somaliland rupia at a rate of 8 lire = 1 rupia. Only coins were issued which circulated alongside Italian coins and banknotes. From 1938, banknotes of the Italian East African lira also...

. Most products transported were bananas and coffee, from farm plantations of the area of Villabruzzi, to be exported through the port of Mogadishu.

It was administered by the Ferrovie Somale, a government company.

The single track railway had a narrow gauge

Narrow gauge

A narrow gauge railway is a railway that has a track gauge narrower than the of standard gauge railways. Most existing narrow gauge railways have gauges of between and .- Overview :...

, as established in 1879 by an Italian law on minor gauges.

Equipment

The equipment of the Somalian railway was similar to the one used in the Eritrean Railway

Eritrean Railway

Steam locomotives

Three classes of steam locomotive were used: one design of 0-4-0 shunter and two designs of 0-4-4-0 Mallet for line service.

202 Series

These small 0-4-0 tank engines were and are the standard shunter locomotives of the system, built between 1927 and 1937 by the firm of Breda in Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

. They have short side tanks, a rear coal bunker, and a unified, oval dome containing the steam dome inside a larger sand dome - this arrangement, popular worldwide in nations that favored the sand dome, helped both to insulate the steam dome and to keep the sand dry with the warmth. Large, prominent builder's plates adorn the domes. They use Walschaerts valve gear with piston valves

Piston

A piston is a component of reciprocating engines, reciprocating pumps, gas compressors and pneumatic cylinders, among other similar mechanisms. It is the moving component that is contained by a cylinder and is made gas-tight by piston rings. In an engine, its purpose is to transfer force from...

and superheating

Superheater

A superheater is a device used to convert saturated steam or wet steam into dry steam used for power generation or processes. There are three types of superheaters namely: radiant, convection, and separately fired...

440 Series

One of these early Mallet locomotives, which is a true Mallet and thus a compound, still exists in storage at the Asmara railway Station. It was a 1915 product of Ansaldo in Genova.

442 Series

These later, and much larger, compound Mallet locomotives were built by Ansaldo in Genova in 1938 to largely replace the earlier types, both the 440 Series and the unsuccessful 441 Series, which were simple locomotives (i.e., non-compound) and found liable to run out of steam on the heavy grades of the line. Like the other locomotives they are tank engines with large side tanks and a rear coal bunker, under cover of the cab roof in this design. These are quite hefty machines, as required by the tough demands of the terrain.

Railway stations

Name	Distance	Altitude
Mogadiscio	0 km (0 mi)	0 m (0 ft)
Ponte sullo Shebelle	30 km (18.6 mi)	18 m (59 ft)
Afgoi	50 km (31.1 mi)	64 ft (20 m)
Adalei	66 km (41 mi)	78 m (256 ft)
Garsala	80 km (49.7 mi)	88 m (289 ft)
Moico	90 km (55.9 mi)	91 m (299 ft)
Ponte sullo Shebelle	111 km (69 mi)	96 m (315 ft)
Villaggio Duca degli Abruzzi Jowhar Jowhar is the capital town of the Shabeellaha Dhexe region of Somalia . Along with Baidoa, it used to form the joint administrative capital of the Transitional Federal Government, which captured it from the Islamic Courts Union.... (Jowhar)	114 km (70.8 mi)	108 m (354 ft)

External links

Italian colonial railways in Somalia (in Italian)

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