Visit to the Railway

We went on a trip saturday, sponsored by the NFS to the main Nigeria Railways shops and yards at Ebute-Metta. (unfortunately there is cloud cover over the railway yards in this image)

Suffice it to say that the railways are currently neglected and in very poor condition. The equipment is mostly old and maintenance is spotty. One of our group termed the situation "shameful".

The shops were very interesting in a ghoulish sort of way. Acres of rusty parts and broken machines. There is work going on, in fact since a similar trip last year things had apparently improved. But the last entry on the chalkboard that listed locomotives being overhauled was dated 1997. The local historical society has three steam locomotives under shelter, one of which that ran as recently as 2003. But they are now being stripped of any salvageable metal pieces for scrap value.

There have been attempts at improving things. But since independence in 1960 and then civil war from 1967 to 1970 other priorities have taken over. And billions in whatever currency you're using to measure have been pissed away.

Some further reading about the railways. Although some of these are blatant propaganda they are still informative.

NRC Official site
N500 billion over 10 year period
Previous regime's view
China's recent activity
Some steam trains we saw.

As I've heard from several sources, "Not one of Nigeria's 39 indigenous languages have a word for Maintenance".