Rail transport in Ethiopia is done within the National Railway Network of Ethiopia, which currently consists of three electrified standard gauge railway lines: the Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway, the Awash–Weldiya Railway and the Weldiya–Mekelle Railway. Other lines are still in the planning phase. There is also an urban light rail system in the country's capital, the Addis Ababa Light Rail.
All railways in Ethiopia are owned and operated by an Ethiopian state-owned enterprise, the Ethiopian Railway Corporation (ERC). A planned legislation opens rail transport to the private sector, from the construction of rail infrastructure to the operation of the same infrastructure and on to the operation of privately owned trains.
History 20th century For more than a century, Ethiopia was served by an international metre gauge railway, from Addis Ababa to the Red Sea port of Djibouti City in Djibouti. The privately built railway primarily served economic purposes. That century-old railway, built from 1897 to 1917, the Ethio-Djibouti Railway and its decades-old rolling stock eventually lacked spare parts and was partially closed down over a number of years after the end of the 20th century. Addis Ababa lost its access to the Red Sea in 2004.
The original plans from the beginning of the 20th foresaw an extension of the railway from Addis Ababa to the Didessa River near Jimma to have full access to the main coffee-producing areas of Ethiopia, but that plan was scrapped already more than 10 years before the railway finally reached Addis Ababa in 1917. In the late 1930s, during the period when Ethiopia was under Italian rule, the Italian administration proposed the construction of several new railways: the Addis Ababa–Dessie–Massaua Railway, the Gondar–Dessie–Assab Railway and the Addis Ababa–Dollo–Mogadishu Railway. These railways would cement the Italian colonial rule in Ethiopia, and economically justified operation was not foreseen. The projects were abandoned due to the outbreak of World War II when Ethiopia regained its sovereignty.
In the 1960s, when only the already ageing metre gauge railway between the Port of Djibouti and Addis Ababa did exist, an economically justified railway network project was proposed. External experts from Yugoslavia and France proposed an extension for the existing metre gauge railway starting in Adama and going to Dilla. All studies at that time supported the economic viability of the extension line and France then offered a loan to construct the railway line between Adama and Dilla. This metre gauge railway network, however, did never materialize.
21st century In the year 2010, the Ethiopian government proposed a new railway network, The National Railway Network of Ethiopia. Some, if not most, of the proposed new railway lines were already planned decades before for the metre gauge railway (see the outline above).
The new National Railway Network of Ethiopia was considered to serve a strategic goal to allow Ethiopia a sustainable and stable economic development. The rail transport of goods appeared favourable – if compared to road transport – in terms of volume, costs, safety and speed of transportation for both imports and exports. The network's primary purpose is then both to connect landlocked Ethiopia to the world market by ensuring seamless access to one or several sea ports and to include Ethiopia's economically most relevant regions. The primary port for Ethiopia is Djibouti. More than 95% of Ethiopia's trade passes through Djibouti. Commodities for export are mainly produced in the southern, southwestern and western parts of Ethiopia. In the National Railway Network of Ethiopia, the main line, (ERC routes 1 & parts of route 2, see the map and the table below) runs from the Port of Djibouti into this area, where 50% of all Ethiopian cities with a population of at least 80000 inhabitants are in immediate reach.
Apart from the main line, a number of auxiliary railways made up the planned railway network. A part of the financial budget required to construct some of the routes was considered to arrive through revenues from the ever-expanding railway network. Considered were also several extensions into neighboring countries, in particular into Kenya, South Sudan and Sudan. At an advanced planning stage is a strategic extension into Kenya. Kenya also set up a railway network program, called the LAPSSET corridor (also known as the Lamu corridor), which foresees joining an Ethiopian rail network at the border between both countries near Moyale. That interconnection would allow Ethiopia to gain strategic access to two more ports in addition to the port of Djibouti, the ports of Lamu, and Mombasa in Kenya.
The ERC split up the National Railway Network of Ethiopia into eight railway routes. The railway routes as presented by the ERC are ordered for their expected economic impact, those with the highest expected economic potential having the lowest numbers and coming first:
ERC-RouteNr. Link Status2018 Course Branches TotalLength 1 Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railwayoperational Sebeta–Addis Ababa–Modjo–Awash–Dire Dawa–Port of Doraleh759 km2planned Modjo–Shashamane–Arba Minch–Konso–Weito Shashamane–HawassaKonso–Moyale905 km3planned Addis Ababa–Ambo–Jimma–Bedele Jimma–Guraferda–Dimma700 km4planned Ambo–Nekemte–Asosa–Kurmuk 520 km5 Awash–Weldiya Railway Weldiya–Mekelle Railway underconstruction Awash–Kombolcha–Weldiya–Mekelle Mekelle–Shire (planned)Meisha–Dallol (planned)757 km6planned Finote Selam–Bahir Dar–Wereta–Weldya–Weldiya–Semera–Elidar–Tadjoura 734 km7planned Wereta–Azezo–Metemma 244 km8planned Adama–Iteya–Gasera Iteya–Asella248 km
Impact of Tigray War
In October 2021 it was reported that during the Tigray War armed forces of the Tigray People's Liberation Front had looted or destroyed most of the construction equipment in Kombolcha. They also damaged part of the almost-finished railway infrastructure, such as tunnels and bridges. The disruption has thrown several thousand railway workers out of work. the construction site in Kombolcha was used as a camp for internally displaced persons. Nevertheless, the Ethiopian government still sees the project as a priority and intends to resume construction.
Railway projects
Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway
In 2011, one year after finalizing the plans on the national railway network, financing was secured for ERC-Route 1 (the Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway) and construction was awarded to Chinese construction firms. In October 2016 and January 2017, the railway was completed and inaugurated."Ethiopia-Djibouti electric railway line opens". BBC News. 5 October 2016. Accessed 3 November 2016.
The railway of length was considered to cost around US$3.5b (US$4m per km of railway) while the Exim Bank of China facilitated a package, that resulted in loans of about US$2.5b in total for the Ethiopian section of the railway plus another US$500m for the Djiboutian section. A later survey revealed that the actual costs were around US$5.2m per km of railway, around 30% more than planned, resulting in total costs of around US$4.5b. As the loans came from China, most contractors were from China. The construction was an EPC/Turnkey project (FIDIC).
In January 2018, the railway became operational.
Northern Railways Contradicting expectation, no contract and no financing was awarded to ERC-Route 2, so that neither the completion of the main line nor the link to Kenya's LAPSSET corridor or other railways in the economically interesting south and southwest could be started. Instead, ERC-Route 5 (split into the Awash–Weldiya Railway and the Weldiya–Mekelle Railway) were awarded to contractors in 2012, both railway lines running northwards from the town of Awash to Weldiya and then from Weldiya to Mekelle. It then took more than two years, until 2014, before financing was secured so that construction of both railways could start in February 2015. Their construction were started as EPC/Turnkey projects (FIDIC).
Awash–Weldiya Railway
The 392 km Awash–Weldiya Railway clearly is of strategic significance. It connects the whole north of Ethiopia, with almost 1/3rd of the Ethiopian population, with the main line and additionally through the Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway with Ethiopia's lifeline, the port of Djibouti. Also, several large cities of Amhara Region are directly served by the railway and the railway will connect Ethiopian industrial centers like Kombolcha with the world. The main ERC facilities (maintenance workshops etc. at Kombolcha) will be located there. These facilities add to the of the main railway, making a total of of rails. For this railway, the ERC was able to secure almost as much external funding per km of railway as for the Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway (loans of US$1.165b at total costs of US$1.7b), except that not from Chinese, but European investors facilitated through Credit Suisse. Funding was provided by a consortium of lenders, including Türk Eximbank, the Swedish National Export Credits Guarantee Board, Denmark's Export Credit Board, and Swiss Export Risk Insurance. The Turkish company Yapı Merkezi and its European subcontractors were chosen to perform the work. Substantial revenues are to be expected from this railway after completion.
The construction contract assumes costs per km of railway to be US$3.8m, which is surprisingly low for a challenging terrain with 56 bridges and 12 tunnels (tunnels: length); theoretical calculations led to US$7m per km in 2015.
Weldiya–Mekelle Railway
The 216 km Weldiya–Mekelle Railway (with a total length of 241 km of rails) did not receive any known loan from foreign institutions (there have been several and always contradictory reports but a look at the balance sheet provides the numbers). Given the total construction budget of US$1.5b, expected costs were US$6.2m per km of rails. Without loans in place for buffering the investment, the ERC had to allocate more own budget for the construction of these 241 km of rails than for the in total ~1300 km of rails of the Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway and of the Awash–Weldiya Railway altogether. The China Communications Construction Company became the prime contractor for the railway.
Potash, Ports and Peace