arriving at
Léopoldville in 1898 in the North) In the 1880s the exploration and exploitation of the Congo territory was carried out by the
Congo Free State, which benefitted from hydrographic network of the
Congo River. But between Matadi and Kinshasa (formerly known as
Léopoldville), the river was not navigable, being barred by the
Livingstone Falls, which follow one another for . Transport was done by human bearers, which was not very efficient and often fatal. Therefore, it was decided to build a railway line along this route. The ''
Compagnie du Congo pour le Commerce et l'Industrie (CCCI) was incorporated on 31 July 1887. On the same day its subsidiary the Compagnie du Chemin de Fer du Congo'' (CCFC) was created. Work on the railway was directed by
Albert Thys, who would give his name to one of the stations,
Thysville (now Mbanza-Ngungu). The completion of the railway officially cost the lives of 1,932 people (1,800 Africans and 132 Europeans), although the real numbers were likely higher. Up to 60,000 labourers worked on the project at one time. The main difficulty was to make it possible for the railway line to leave the gorges of the Congo River, through the canyon of the
M'pozo River and a passage along the
Monts de Cristal. The living conditions in the construction of this railway were miserable. The sanitary and medical facilities were insufficient. In 1892, about two thousand people worked on the railroad, of which an average of one hundred and fifty workers per month lost their lives due to
smallpox,
dysentery,
beriberi and exhaustion. By the end of 1892, 7,000 workers had already been recruited, 3,500 of whom had died or fled (for example, to neighboring forests). These conditions made it more difficult to recruit workers. Thys therefore attracted people from
Barbados and China in September and November 1892 respectively. The Barbadians refused to leave the boats in the port of Matadi until they were forced by firearms. Seven people lost their lives in this action. The hard labour on the railway line is mentioned by
Joseph Conrad in his novel
Heart of Darkness, which he witnessed when he worked in the Congo Free State. It is also shown in the 2016 movie
The Legend of Tarzan. Started in 1890, the railway line was completed in 1898. It was built to a nominal gauge of , and all rolling stock was constructed to this gauge. However, as local labour had difficulty grasping the concept of gauge widening on curves, the entire line was built to a gauge of . Alterations were made from 1923 to 1931, when it was
converted to gauge on a new alignment. Several tens of thousands of people, convicts and forced workers, were employed for this renovation. Seven thousand people lost their lives here. In spite of the technical and financial difficulties related to the construction of the railway line, the railway line very quickly proved to be profitable, mainly because of the transportation of
ivory and
rubber. As a gauge railway it operated a large fleet of
0-6-0T,
0-6-2T,
2-6-2T locomotives before turning to 32
0-6-0+0-6-0 Garratts, and finally 5 - outside-framed 2-8-2 locomotives. The railway can be classified as a
portage railway.
Border change In 1928, Congo (Belgium) and Angola (Portugal) did a land exchange to facilitate the new route of the railway to Congo-Kinshasa. == Specifications ==