Southern Province Railway

The Southern Province Railway was a railway network in Tanzania, which - was operated in the middle of the 20th century - only a few years. It included ultimately about 275 km of track width 610 mm. Central distance of the network was the railway line Mtwara Nachingwea. The network provided a stand-alone operation without connection to another train dar.

Trigger for the railway construction was the Tanganyika Groundnut Scheme, a part of the former colonial power Britain ahead driven, but ultimately failed for development projects whose core component was peanut cultivation on a gigantic scale. In order to transport the crop was initially taken by the Overseas Food Cooperation in 1949 a distance of Ruo after Nachingwea in operation and extended a year later to Lindi on the Indian Ocean. This extension also took the route of around 1921 opened an 18 -km field run in the 600 mm gauge, which ran from a sisal plantation near Lindi after Narunyu.

When the Overseas Food Cooperation in 1952 ran into financial difficulties, the railroad was first taken over by the East African Railways and expanded to a network. For 1954, the newly built port of Mikindani and the port city of Mtwara was connected. 1958 still followed the route Chilungula - Masasi.

Were made ​​both of steam ( the series RV/21, G and NZ) and diesel locomotives ( the series 80 and 81). Passenger existed between Mtwara and Nachingwea. For this, a vice sprinter diesel railcar of the former Kenya and Uganda Railways was used. After the failure of the Tanganyika Groundnut Scheme the railway system was deprived of its economic base. After the independence of Tanzania it was abandoned and set the operation in February 1963.