Gulu. Northern Uganda.

Photos of motive and rolling stock, stations, signals and anything else train related in Uganda! Photos should be 800x600 pixels, maximum size 130K. Very good ones will be moved to the Online Gallery, the rest will be pruned away after 14 days to conserve space.
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M. Hardy-Randall
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Gulu. Northern Uganda.

Post by M. Hardy-Randall »

Two class 24 locos sit outside the new loco depot. 1963.
Gulu.  Two 24 class outside the new loco depot.jpg
Gulu. Two 24 class outside the new loco depot.jpg (97.51 KiB) Viewed 5935 times
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John Ashworth
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Re: Gulu. Northern Uganda.

Post by John Ashworth »

A beautiful and historic photo. It's a couple of years since I've been in Gulu and I didn't get the chance to search for railway infrastructure - must try if I get back there again soon.
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M. Hardy-Randall
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Re: Gulu. Northern Uganda.

Post by M. Hardy-Randall »

The two locos shown were used for the construction works trains on the Gulu - Pakwach extension.
Gulu.  EAR&H Class 24 #2447 shunts in the station area.jpg
Shunting the work train.
Marc Russell
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Re: Gulu. Northern Uganda.

Post by Marc Russell »

It looks rather deceiving, but it appears that in these photos and in the other Ugandan pictures that the sleepers are made of concrete. The photos are fascinating!! I feel like I have missed out on something......
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M. Hardy-Randall
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Re: Gulu. Northern Uganda.

Post by M. Hardy-Randall »

The sleepers are all steel. A large portion of the track used on the extension to Pakwach was uplifted from the old 'Groundnut' scheme from Nachingwea to Mtwara. The track was then shipped up via Mombasa and the main line into Uganda and then via Soroti and Gulu.

Malcolm
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John Ashworth
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Re: Gulu. Northern Uganda.

Post by John Ashworth »

I last passed through Pakwach by road in 1997 en route to Sudan and got a glance at some of the railway infrastructure which still remains there, but the security situation didn´t allow me to linger nor to produce a camera. Wonder if that line will reopen?
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M. Hardy-Randall
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Re: Gulu. Northern Uganda.

Post by M. Hardy-Randall »

It saddens me to hear that the Pakwach line is now closed and abandoned, when I think of what life was like and the conditions endured as the line was being built.

Memories come back about the end-of line camp. Like the sign painted on a board that read 'Elephants have right of way' something, I think, everybody agreed with. The sign had been copied from a similar one near Kasese in the Queen Elizabeth National Park outside the Mweya Lodge.

The Northern extension line was routed around the Paraa National Game reserve and was not allowed to deviate for any reason because of the animals. However, that idea was great but nobody taught the animals how to map read and often at night strange noises could be heard in the camp.
Kevin Wilson-Smith

Re: Gulu. Northern Uganda.

Post by Kevin Wilson-Smith »

These are lovely pictures - I like the second one especially (and the rail "trolley"!).
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John Ashworth
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Re: Gulu. Northern Uganda.

Post by John Ashworth »

That Wickham trolley looks very much like one that used to be in the Nairobi Railway Museum, at least in the nineties, but I didn´t see it when I was there this year. Presumably EAR had a lot of similar ones.

It´s intriguing to speculate whether the Pakwach branch might be reopened as part of the redevelopment of southern Sudan as an autonomous region and perhaps eventually an independent country. There are certainly plans/dreams of a rail link to East Africa to reduce the south´s dependence on northern Sudan. But whether that will be an extension of existing lines and where, or a complete new line (possibly to standard gauge), is still very open and, as with many grand projects, it might never happen at all.
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John Ashworth
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Re: Gulu. Northern Uganda.

Post by John Ashworth »

Speak of the devil - see what Railways Africa has just come up with!
UGANDA-SUDAN LINK
Thursday, 21 August 2008

On 19 August 2008, a meeting took place to review the Uganda-Sudan joint ministerial commission provisions relating to transport and to discuss a proposed rail link from Gulu (on the Uganda Railway Corporation (URC) Tororo-Pakwach branch) via Juba (250km) to WÃ¥, the south-western Sudanese railhead (a further 500km). No indication has been given of likely cost, nor source of funding. The Sudanese delegation was led by minister for transport, roads and bridges brigadier-general Phillip Fhon Leek Deng and included a minister from the government of South Sudan (Amza Mohammed), as well as the director-general of the Sudan Railways Corporation (SRC) and the director-general of the Sudan National Highway Authority, Hamid Mahmud.

[ SRC uses 1,067mm gauge, Uganda 1,000mm. Some years ago there was talk of a 1,435mm gauge line from Pakwach in Uganda to WÃ¥. - editor
Incidentally that should read Wau, not Wa with a Scandinavian thing over the a. Wau is the nominal railhead from the north into southern Sudan, but the actual railhead has been Aweil for a couple of decades as the bridge near Aweil was blown up by the southern liberation movement to prevent military trains reaching the government garrison in Wau. I was in Wau a couple of years ago and there is still a bit of railway infrastructure there, including some rotting wagons, but for security reasons I couldn´t get too close.
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