Nostalgia & History > Upper Katanga Railroad

Several weeks ago, I posted a few postal card pictures from an early railroad in the Belgian Congo. There was another line that ran from the upper Katanga province in the Belgian Congo. This line ran through the Portuguese colony of Angola to the sea at Luanda. The reason for building this railroad is pictured in these cards. These are some of the buildings at the massive copper strike in Katanga. These mines produced a fortune for the Belgian government. Later on, large deposits of cobalt and uranium were found. Before and during World War II, the uranium mines were a major source of the world's supply of uranium. In any case, you can see a few tracks in two of the pictures. This is a fine example of how mining pushed economic development is very strange places. (Please, read Wiki first before making PC comments.)

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Fascinating. Narrow gauge?

Posted from iPhone

CPRR Wrote:
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> Fascinating. Narrow gauge?
>
> Posted from iPhone

1 meter (3' 3'3/8")

Roger Lewis (airbrakegeezer)

I was going to say that it looked like one of those places you didn't like going to on a Monday morning
but surprisingly it looks clean and in good shape.

Out

Thanks much for posting these!

My dad worked as an installation and service rep for General Electric's large turbine and generator group, and he rode this line accompanying a high-wide move in the late 1970s.  The slides are around here somewhere.

I think this is also the line that EM Frimbo described as the world's best smelling railroad because the steam locomotives burned eucalyptus logs.