Origins The
Imperial Railway Company of Ethiopia ( or
Compagnie Impériale Éthiopienne with its headquarters in
Paris. The company received a royal charter on March 9, 1894, but Menelek resisted putting any of his personal funds into the venture. Instead, the company received a 99-year concession to operate the railway, in return for giving Menelek shares in the company and half of all profits in excess of 3,000,000
francs. Furthermore, the firm was obliged to construct a
telegraph line along the route.
Construction (1897–1917) It took until 1897 before the necessary permission from French authorities was received, by which time significant opposition in Ethiopia had materialized. The emperor himself was irate at the involvement of the French government, which had offered to fund the line, but investor interest was restrained. overseen by Europeans, began to press inland with the railway and its associated telegraph. Ethiopians were hired largely as security forces, to prevent the theft of materials on the line. This was also an important source of corruption for the primarily French administration, which fabricated incidents of sabotage and requested funds to buy off local chiefs that it claimed were responsible for it. Furthermore, the line was forced to avoid interfering with local communities and water sources, pushing it out into the desert. This meant that the railway company had to build
aqueducts to supply its steam locomotives, an additional unplanned expense. Even before reaching the Ethiopian border, it was clear the firm had serious financial problems. A group of British investors calling themselves the
New Africa Company effectively took control of the firm over several years. They provided a new source of capital, and by 1901 had joined with the French investors to form the
International Ethiopian Railway Trust and Construction Company, a
holding company which controlled the railway and supplied it with further capital. The mixture of French and British interests proved volatile, as each group of investors stood for both national and commercial interests. Both governments grew interested in monopolizing Ethiopian trade and conspired to force the other into a minority position. The demands and threats of the two governments led Emperor Menelek in 1902 to forbid the extension of the railway line to
Harar. French negotiations to resume work were blocked by Menelek's growing suspicion of French motives, and the line could not earn enough to pay back the company's debts with such a limited service. The signing of the
Entente Cordiale in 1904 reopened the possibility of continued joint Anglo-French investment and development, but there was enough resistance to such proposals on both sides that no progress was made. The firm went formally bankrupt in 1906. The portion completed ran from Djibouti to just short of
Harar, the principal
entrepôt for commerce in southern
Ethiopia. The terminus evolved into the city of
Dire Dawa, which grew to become larger than Harar itself. The first commercial service began in July 1901 from Djibouti to Dire Dawa. Following the
1906 Tripartite Treaty between
Italy,
France, and
Britain and the 1908
Klobukowski Treaty between France and Ethiopia, Menelek consented to further expansion of the railway. The new concession was granted to Menelek's personal physician, a black
Guadeloupean named Dr. Vitalien, on 30 January 1908. The assets of the former company were then transferred to a new firm, the Franco-Ethiopian Railway (
Compagnie du Chemin de Fer Franco-Éthiopien In the 1930s, the railway carried 70% of all Ethiopian trade.
Italian occupation and World War II (1936–1945) seize a railway station of the Ethio-Djibouti Railways in
Dire Dawa, May 1936. Ethiopia's share in the railway was seized by the
Italian government in the
Second Italo-Abyssinian War (1936), but the Anglo-French company continued to operate during the
Italian occupation. Steam trains of the
Krupp type took approximately 36 hours to travel the full length of the line. Increased speeds were achieved by importing trains made by the Italian manufacturers
Ansaldo and
Breda, along with self-propelled cars from Fiat. Travel time decrease to 30 hours. The Italian "Addis Ababa Regulatory Plan of 1938" advocated the creation of three railway stations in the city of
Addis Ababa to replace the
Legehar train station, which would be demolished. The Italian occupiers also planned to build several new railways to link Ethiopia with their other East African colonies. The
Addis Ababa–Dessie–Massaua Railway and the
Gondar–Dessie–Assab Railway would reach Italian Eritrea, and the
Addis Ababa–Dollo–Mogadishu Railway would reach Italian Somaliland. However,
Italian setbacks in World War II forced the abandonment of these expansion projects. After British troops expelled the Italians in 1941 and restored Haile Selassie to the throne, the railway line was temporarily closed until 1944.
Post-World War II In 1947, the Railroad Workers Syndicate was founded as one of the first labor unions in Ethiopia. Although the Syndicate was mostly a mutual aid organisation, the government viewed strikes as insurrection. A strike in 1949 was brutally suppressed. In 1960–1963, the Franco-Ethiopian Railways conducted surveys to extend the line 310 kilometers from
Adama to
Dilla. Although the French government offered a loan in 1965, the project was never realised. Following the independence of Djibouti in 1977, the French share in the railway was transferred to the new nation. Around 1982, the railway was subsequently reorganized as the
Ethio-Djibouti Railways (
Compagnie du Chemin de Fer Djibouto-Éthiopien The
Ogaden War of 1977–1978 dealt a further blow to the railway, as Somali troops invaded Ethiopia and captured the railway as far as Dire Dawa. Portions of the railway were blown up in the war, and railway operations were again cut in half. After the war ended, the railway continued to decline from a lack of maintenance and attacks from rebels such as the
Ogaden Liberation Front. Both the lack of maintenance and an ambitious road construction program made rail transport increasingly non-competitive. In January 1985, the
Awash rail disaster killed 429 passengers when their train derailed on the Awash River Bridge and fell into the gorge below. Railway service ended in 2008 between Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa, but trains continued to run between Dire Dawa and Djibouti.
Partial rehabilitation (2006–2014) The governments of Ethiopia and Djibouti pursued foreign aid to rehabilitate the railway. The
European Commission prepared a grant of EUR 40 million in 2003 and raised it to EUR 50 million in 2006. An agreement was signed with the Italian consortium
Consta on November 29, 2006, and work began in 2007 on sections of the line that deteriorated following the
Ogaden War. The rehabilitation planned to reduce the cost of rail transport between Addis Ababa and Djibouti from $55 per tonne to $20 per tonne, compared to $30 per tonne for road transport. Almost half of the rails would be replaced, and along with 49 damaged steel bridges. In 2006, the South African firm
Comazar was chosen to receive a 25-year concession. However, this plan was not executed, and in early 2008, it was announced that the railway was in negotiations with the
Kuwaiti company
Fouad Alghanim and Sons Group. The EU-funded rehabilitation project stagnated, and only 5 km of tracks had been rehabilitated by 2009. The Addis Ababa railway terminal,
La Gare, was threatened with demolition in 2008 by a street project, but the building survived. The tracks between Dire Dawa and Addis Ababa fell into total disrepair, and many of the rails were stolen and sold for scrap. Rail service between Dire Dawa and Djibouti City ended in August 2010. However, the rehabilitation project resumed, and the tracks from Dire Dawa to the Djibouti border were returned to service in 2013. As of 2018, trains run on 213 km of rehabilitated line between
Dire Dawa and
Guelile. However, very few passengers use the train. There are plans to restore 150 km of tracks from
Dire Dawa to
Mieso. == Operating company ==