The railway line roughly follows old trade routes between the ancient trading centre of
Benguela and its hinterland of the Bié plateau. In 1899, the Portuguese government initiated the construction of the railway to give access to the central Angolan plateau and the mineral wealth of the then
Congo Free State. A concession, running for 99 years, was granted to
Sir Robert Williams on 28 November 1902. The railway reached an operational peak in 1973 when it transported 3.3 million tons of cargo, generated freight revenues of $30 million, and had 14,000 employees.
Steam locomotives outnumbered
diesels as late as 1987. When the 99-year concession expired in 2001, only remained in service, along the coast from Benguela to Lobito.
Rehabilitation and extension The railway was 90% owned by
Tanganyika Concessions (Tanks), a London-based holding company.
Société Générale de Belgique purchased a minority share in Tanks in 1923 and acquired a controlling interest in 1981. The Belgian company remained the controlling owner of the railway when the concession expired in 2001, at which point ownership of the railway passed to the Angolan government. After the
Angolan Civil War ended in 2002, the railway was reconstructed between 2006 and 2014 by the
China Railway Construction Corporation at a cost of $1.83 billion. The rebuilt railway was formally inaugurated in February 2015. On 5 March 2018, ore transport was restarted from the
Tenke Fungurume Mine, in the DRC, from where copper and
cobalt are extracted, and the cargo transported to the
port of Lobito. From that date the railway went into full operation, connecting the city of
Tenke to the city of Lobito. The project includes eleven bridges and eight railway stations and construction began in January 2026, expected to take five years.
Lobito Atlantic Railway On 4 July 2023, the
Lobito Atlantic Railway company secured a 30-year concession for railway services. This joint venture involved
Trafigura, a Singapore-based company,
Mota-Engil, headquartered in Portugal, and Vecturis SA, a Belgium-based rail operator. The concession agreement encompassed the entire 1,300km railway line in Angola, extending to the 400km line into the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) (up to
Kolwezi), and also includes any potential service extensions in Zambia. To support their operations, the company committed to investing in Angola and up to in the DRC. The awarding of the concessions took place in the presence of Presidents
João Lourenço of Angola,
Félix Tshisekedi of the DRC, and
Hakainde Hichilema of Zambia. Expected to operate at least 1555 wagons and 30 locomotives in Angola, an initial 275 wagons were ordered by contract from South Africa in June 2024. Operations launched at the LAR mineral terminal at the
Port of Lobito the following month, with the docking of
MV Lindsaylou, a bulk cargo vessel, on 12 July 2024, with cargo later transferred to train cars to journey to the DRC. ==Accidents==