TAZARA Railway: The History of Africa's Freedom Railway

The TAZARA railway, short for the Tanzania-Zambia Railway, runs for roughly 1,860 km from New Kapiri Mposhi in central Zambia to the port of Dar es Salaam on the Indian Ocean. It was built between 1970 and 1975 with an interest-free loan, engineers and tens of thousands of workers from the People's Republic of China, working alongside Tanzanian and Zambian labourers.

Its purpose was political as much as economic. Landlocked Zambia needed a way to export its copper that did not depend on white-minority-ruled Rhodesia, apartheid South Africa or the Portuguese colonies. That is why the line became known as the Uhuru Railway, or the Freedom Railway.

Why Zambia needed a new route to the sea

When Zambia became independent in 1964, copper was the heart of its economy, and almost all of it left the country by rail through territories controlled by governments hostile to African majority rule. The main routes ran south through Southern Rhodesia to ports in Mozambique, then a Portuguese colony, or on into South Africa. A secondary route ran west through Angola, also under Portuguese rule.

In 1965 the white-minority government of Rhodesia declared independence from Britain unilaterally. Zambia, under President Kenneth Kaunda, opposed the regime and supported the liberation movements fighting it. That put the country in an impossible position: its income depended on the goodwill of the neighbours it was resisting. Fuel, which also came in through the south, was rationed, and lorries began making the long journey up the Great North Road to Tanzania. In 1973 Rhodesia closed the border, and although it soon offered to reopen it, Zambia kept its side shut.

A railway to Dar es Salaam, a port in friendly, independent Tanzania under Julius Nyerere, offered a way out. Our article on Zambia and the frontline states explains the wider politics of that choice.

Building the TAZARA railway

Kaunda and Nyerere first approached Western governments and international lenders, who judged the project too expensive or not worth backing. China, then looking to build friendships in newly independent Africa, agreed to finance and build it. The agreement between the three governments was signed in 1967, and construction began in 1970.

The engineering was formidable. The line climbs from the hot coastal plain through river valleys and steep escarpments into the southern highlands of Tanzania, crossing hundreds of bridges and passing through many tunnels. It also crosses the great wilderness of what is now Nyerere National Park, formerly part of the Selous Game Reserve. Workers from all three countries lived in camps along the route, and some died during construction. Their graves, including a cemetery for Chinese workers near Dar es Salaam, are part of the railway's memory today.

The line was completed in 1975, ahead of its planned schedule, and formally handed over in 1976. It was built to the 1,067 mm gauge used in Zambia, so that trains could run through from the Zambian network, rather than to the metre gauge used on Tanzania's older central line.

Why it was called the Freedom Railway

For Nyerere and Kaunda, political independence was not complete if a country could only trade with the permission of hostile neighbours. A railway controlled by two African states, running to an African port, was a way of turning independence on paper into practical freedom. In that sense TAZARA belongs to the same story as the liberation struggles of southern Africa. It also became an early, highly visible symbol of China's relationship with Africa, decades before the large Chinese-financed projects of the twenty-first century.

The line was never only about copper. Passenger trains carried traders, students, families and migrants between the two countries, and towns along the route grew up around stations and markets. For many people in rural Tanzania and northern Zambia, the train was the most practical way to travel long distances.

Decline and rehabilitation

The railway's early years were busy, but problems soon followed. Locomotives and wagons were often out of service, maintenance fell behind, and the line was managed by two governments with different priorities. After Zimbabwe's independence in 1980 and the end of apartheid in the early 1990s, the southern routes reopened, removing much of the political reason for TAZARA. Paved roads drew freight to lorries. For many years the line has carried only a small fraction of the cargo it was designed for, and passenger services have been slow and irregular.

In 2024 China, Tanzania and Zambia signed agreements for a major revitalisation of the line with Chinese investment, intended to modernise track and rolling stock and restore it as a serious freight corridor. At the same time, other routes for the region's minerals are being developed, including a Western-backed rail corridor through Angola to the port of Lobito. It is easy to describe all this as a contest between foreign powers. The expedition is more interested in how Zambians and Tanzanians see it: as states making their own choices about routes, partners and debt, and as workers and families who have depended on the line for generations.

On the road north from Kapiri Mposhi

Kapiri Mposhi is where Zambia's older railway, running north from Livingstone through Lusaka and Kabwe towards the Copperbelt, meets TAZARA. It is also a point on the expedition's planned walking line. From there, the Great North Road and the railway run broadly in the same direction towards the Tanzanian border at Nakonde and Tunduma, sometimes close together and sometimes many kilometres apart.

Leon will not take the train. The walk continues by road, on foot, through Mkushi, Serenje, Mpika, Chinsali and Isoka, at a planning pace of roughly 30 to 35 km a day. But the railway is a natural handover between the southern African chapters of the journey and East Africa, and the expedition hopes to hear from current and retired railway workers and their families about what the line has meant to them. You can follow the full line on the route page and, once he is walking, through the journal.

A railway is easy to see as a line on a map. Walking beside the corridor it serves, through the towns that grew around it, makes it a human story. If you would like to help Leon make that journey, you can support the walk. Before Kapiri Mposhi, the route passes through Kabwe, home of the story told in the Kabwe skull.

Frequently asked questions

Who built the TAZARA railway?

It was financed and engineered by China, and built between 1970 and 1975 by Chinese, Tanzanian and Zambian workers. It is jointly owned by the governments of Tanzania and Zambia.

How long is the TAZARA railway?

Roughly 1,860 km, from New Kapiri Mposhi in Zambia to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.

Why is TAZARA called the Freedom Railway?

Because it gave Zambia a route to the sea that avoided white-minority-ruled Rhodesia, apartheid South Africa and the Portuguese colonies, making its independence more real in practice.

Does the TAZARA train still run?

Yes, freight and passenger services continue, though they have long been limited and irregular. Timetables and services change, so check current information before planning a journey.