Eritrea 2002 "Mind the Gap", and 2005

When the first part of this film was shot in 2002, a gap of 24kms existed in the 117kms between Asmara, the capital, and the Red Sea port of Massawa. This was a legacy of the independence war with Ethiopia, during the 1990's, at which time the railway was put up for closure and operations ceased. However, some key railwaymen remained confident that the railway would run again some day, and - defying instructions from Ethiopia to destroy all the railway documents and plans - they carefully greased all the locomotive moving parts, and stored the drawings, in anticipation of re-opening, which came in late 2000. The first real tour of the Eritrean Railways came in November 2002, when the Enthusiast Holidays group was welcomed by the General Manager Amanuel Ghebreselassie, who had masterminded the complex task of bringing the "Red Sea Railway" back to life. At this time the "gap" still existed, and it was actually the most scenic section of this 950mm gauge line; but by our next visit, in 2005m, and largely thanks to the Eritrean Army who no longer had to fight the Ethiopians, the whole line had been restored. Between our two visits there had also been a change in the livery of the passenger carriages, which is why we made no attempt to "integrate" the two sections of this film. The steam locomotives involved arre 0-4-4-0 Mallet tanjks, of Class 442, built by Ansaldo of Genova in 1938; we saw the oldeer (1915) Class 440 on shed at Asmara, but we did not have it for haulage; plus a few Breda 0-4-0 tanks, and one of the 1957-built Krupp diesels, which was always on hand should our steam train get into trouble. It didn't, although we did occasionally have to stop for a "blow-up" because of poor (American) coal. Our transport also included a restored 1935 Fiat railcar, or "Littorina" - these had dramatically reduc ed the journey time between Asmara and Massawa from the 10 hours which the steam trains took to clamber up the 1 in 28 gradients of the escarpment, to 3¼ hours, when they were introduced before the Second World War. A nice touch was the provision of one of the two "Orlon" Russian rail-lorries, so that tour participants could ride on it and get dramatic action pictures ahead of either the steam train or the "Littorina" or both; but a few years later an accident put a stop to this activity, which would have got Health and Safety people very excited had it been in the UK! In the course of making this film, we visited Eritrea's capital, Asmara - an attractive, Italianate town with a pleasantly cool climate due to its altitude (7,683 feet above sea level). This is a legacy of the late 19th Century, when the Italians, aware that the British, Germans, French and Portuguese had grabbed large parts of Africa, decided it was their turn too. Asmara has a noisy "recycling and re-purposing" district, but more importantly for us, the Italian occupiers left well-equipped railway workshops, with (now) elderly machinery, and today worked by equally elderly operators, many in their 70s, 80s and even 90s! Conversely Massawa, the port on the Red Sea coast, with the ruins of Haile Selassie's "Winter Palace" clearly visible from the train, is hot, but presents an almost biblical appearance with its dhows and harbours, which our double-headed special train passes before proceeding across the causeways and into an inhospitable desert land of rocks and dried up watercourses, complete with camels (who will happily pose for photograhs for a fee!) before tackling the final ascent to the summit at 7,858 feet just after Arboraba, before descending to the terminus at Asmara. There are substantial railway stations at Mai Atal, Ghinda, Damas and Nefasit, but otherwise it is one of the most barren terrains on earth, and with ther sad death of Amanuel Ghebrreselassie, competition faced by the railway from the parallel highway, and the lack of any serious tourism, it is hard to see any real future for the "Red Sea Ralway". That, by the way, is the title of the book, co-written by Ghebreselassie and Jennie Street, about the line - with 354 pages it is a serious work, although you will be lucky to find a printed copy - it is, I believe, available on Amazon for Kindle and other such devices. An article about the two tours on which this film is based, appeared in the July 2003 "Railway Magazine".