Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0417/04175.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 25KB | 398 lines

$Unique_ID{COW04175}
$Pretitle{267}
$Title{Zaire
Chapter 4E.   Transportation}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Donald P. Whitaker}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{zaire
river
kilometers
transport
major
early
kinshasa
part
port
route}
$Date{1978}
$Log{}
Country:     Zaire
Book:        Zaire, A Country Study
Author:      Donald P. Whitaker
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1978

Chapter 4E.   Transportation

     The size and shape of the country, the great distances between many of
the more populated areas, and in particular the relative remoteness of the
major mining and agricultural commodities producing areas from the principal
national export outlet to the sea in western Zaire make a well organized,
efficient, transport system vital both to the internal unification of the
nation's diverse people and to the competitiveness of exports on the world
market. The latter factor was of overriding concern to the colonial
administration and the commercial ventures of the period and, as a result, at
independence the country had a transportation system that compared more than
favorably with systems in other African countries south of the Sahara.

     The system was, and remains, unique in that it is based on some 14,000
kilometers of navigable waterways, consisting chiefly of the Zaire and Kasai
rivers and their tributaries, which reach out into almost all sections of the
country (see fig. 10). The 5,100 kilometers of railroads, all constructed
during the colonial period except for one small stretch in Haut-Zaire, were
built mainly to complement the river network, connecting production centers to
it and providing bypasses for nonnavigable sections. Similarly the roughly
140,000 to 145,000 kilometers of roads, except for some in the northeastern
part of the country where the rivers have little transport value and some
interurban roads, constituted a feeder network for the system (see fig. 11).
In addition to this major national transportation net, the series of large
lakes bordering Zaire's eastern border offered natural transportation routes
of significance principally to the eastern zone but, via Lake Tanganyika and a
rail route across Tanzania, also offering an outlet to international markets
for products from the Shaba area.

La Voie Nationale (The National Way)

     The domestic route having the greatest significance to the national
economy was that between the major mining region in the southeast and the
seaport of Matadi, comprising a rail link from Lubumbashi to Ilebo, river
shipment from there to Kinshasa, and another rail link to Matadi. Known as the
Voie Nationale, its importance as a completely internal route acquired a
further meaning in the mid-1970s when conflict in neighboring Angola cut rail
traffic through that country from Shaba, and Mozambique's closing of its
border with Southern Rhodesia in 1976 eliminated another direct rail route
through the port of Beira. Three other external routes remained open in early
1978, however. These included a route via Kalemie, Lake Tanganyika, and
Tanzania to Dar es Salaam, a total of 2,715 kilometers, which required two
transshipments and a transport time of twenty to twenty-five days. A shorter
(2,250 kilometers) direct rail link with Dar es Salaam through Zambia became
operational in 1976. The transport time was not known, but a major problem in
1978 was overcongestion of the port of Dar es Salaam. The third route was
southward to the port of East London in South Africa, a distance of 3,463
kilometers that required twenty-five to thirty days. Although more costly,
substantial exports via this means in 1977 were reported.

Railroads

     There are five separate railroad systems. Until December 1974 they were
owned and operated in part by private companies and in part by government
agencies, but in that year a national authority, the Societe Nationale des
Chemins de Fer Zairois (SNCZ), was established to take over and operate all
lines. The oldest line is the Chemin de Fer Matadi-Kinshasa (CFMK), having a
length of 366 kilometers. Construction was begun in 1889 and completed in
1898. The line ended at Thysville but was realigned in the late 1920s and
extended to Kinshasa, reopening in 1932. It is an integral part of the Voie
Nationale, bypassing the series of rapids that prevent navigation on the
400-kilometer stretch of the Zaire River between Kinshasa and Matadi.

     The Chemin de Fer Kinshasa-Dilolo-Lubumbashi (KDL) forms the second major
rail link of the Voie Nationale, connecting the Shaba mining region with the
river port of Ilebo on the Kasai River. The first section, from Elisabethville
to Bukama, on the navigable upper part of the Lualaba River, was started in
1911 but not completed until 1918 because of World War I. The route via the
Lualaba required several transshipments, however, and in 1923 construction of
a new line was started to connect Bukama with Ilebo. A distance of 1,123
kilometers, this project was completed in 1928. The final major branch of the
KDL system, a 522-kilometer section westward from Tenke to Dilolo on the
Angolan border, where it joined the railroad built meanwhile by the Portuguese
from the port of Lobito, was completed in 1931. This route offered the
shortest outlet to the outside world for the region's products, requiring
about twelve days shipping time in normal conditions. The KDL track throughout
the mining area is electrified (a total of about 650 kilometers).

     The Chemins de Fer des Grands Lacs (CFL), 960 kilometers in length,
constitutes the country's third principal rail system. Not a direct part of
the Voie Nationale, it nevertheless forms with navigable parts of the Lualaba
and Zaire rivers another, although much longer, completely national route from
the Shaba mining region to the port of Matadi. A 273-kilometer-long branch of
this system extends eastward to Kalemie and from there, by transshipment
across Lake Tanganyika to Kigoma in Tanzania, provides an alternate route for
exports through Dar es Salaam. This branch also serves the movement of goods
in and out of the eastern part of Zaire in the Lake Tanganyika region. The
first section of CFL, 125 kilometers long, which bypasses rapids on the
Lualaba River southward between Kisangani and Ubungu, was opened in 1906. From
there the river is navigable upstream to Kindu, a distance of 310 kilometers.
A second rail section originally ran 355 kilometers from Kindu to Kongolo
(completed in 1911), where the river again becomes navigable. This was
extended another 80 kilometers to Kabalo in 1938 because of unfavorable river
conditions. In 1956 CFL was tied in directly to the KDL system by a
201-kilometer branch from Kabalo to Kamina on the latter line. This offered a
considerably shorter route from the main part of the CFL system to Kinshasa
and Matadi via Ilebo.

     The remaining two rail systems are small operations. One, the Chemin de
Fer de Mayumbe (CFM), extends 140 kilometers inland from the ocean port of
Boma to Tshela. Traffic was very low, freight tonnage averaging about 60,000
to 70,000 tons annually in the mid-1970s. The other system was the Chemin de
Fer Vicinaux du Zaire (CVZ), which operates in northeast Zaire. It had a
length of 1,025 kilometers and was narrow gauge (600 millimeters) instead of
the 1.067-meter gauge of the three principal systems. Extending originally
from Mungbere in eastern Haut-Zaire to Aketi in the western part of the
region, it served to move agricultural products from the zone to a tributary
of the Zaire River for transshipment. Seasonal variability of the water level
made the tributary unreliable, however, and the rail line was further extended
from Aketi to Bumba, directly on the Zaire-from which point regular service
began in 1973.

River and Maritime Transport

     The principal river routes are the continuous, navigable section of the
Zaire River extending 1,734 kilometers from Kinshasa to Kisangani and the
uninterrupted stretch of the Kwa-Kasai River from the debouchment of the Kwa