Chemins de fer des Uele (Uele Railways or Vicicongo line) is a

narrow-gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller structur ...

line in the north east of the

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

. It was built between 1924 and 1937 as a

portage railway A portage railway is a short and possibly isolated section of railway used to bypass a section of unnavigable river or between two water bodies which are not directly connected. Cargo from waterborne vessels is unloaded, loaded onto conventional ...

bypassing Congo River rapids.

Route

The line runs from the

Congo river The Congo River ( kg, Nzâdi Kôngo, french: Fleuve Congo, pt, Rio Congo), formerly also known as the Zaire River, is the second longest river in Africa, shorter only than the Nile, as well as the second largest river in the world by discharge ...

port Bumba in

Mongala Mongala is one of the 21 new provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo created in the 2015 repartitioning. Mongala, Équateur, Nord-Ubangi, Sud-Ubangi, and Tshuapa provinces are the result of the dismemberment of the former Équateur ...

via Lower Uele to

Mungbere Mungbere is a small town in Haut-Uele province, in the north of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Transport It was served by the terminal of a now non-operational narrow gauge railway from Bumba, known as the Vicicongo line. See also * Li ...

in Upper Uele with branch lines to Bondo, Buta and Titule city. The total network is long.Durrant, A.E., A.A. Jorgensen, C.P. Lewis. Steam in Africa, London, 1981, Hamlyn. Operationally, the network consists of the following sections: * Bumba–Aketi * Aketi–Bondo * Aketi–Buta–Isiro * Liénart–Titule * Buta–Buta Triangle Town * Isiro–Mungbere

History

The Uele railways were built 1924–1937 by a Belgian company, the Société des Chemins de Fer Vicinaux du Congo (Vicicongo). The first line ran from Aketi to Bondo and was built from leftover German army stocks used in

trench railways Trench railways represented military adaptation of early 20th-century railway technology to the problem of keeping soldiers supplied during the static trench warfare phase of World War I. The large concentrations of soldiers and artillery at the ...

heeresfeldbahn A ''Heeresfeldbahn'' is a German or Austrian military field railway (in Austria also called a ''Rollbahn''). They were field railways ('' Feldbahnen'') designed for the military transportation purposes. History As railways developed during t ...

en, which the Belgians acquired after

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. Later, the line was extended from

Komba Komba is a given name. Notable people with the name include: * Komba Claudius Gbamanja, Sierra Leonean politician from the opposition Sierra Leone People's Party * Samuel Komba Kambo, retired captain in the Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces * K ...

to Buta Pauli (today Isiro) and Mungbere, which was reached in 1937. A planned expansion to the gold mines of Moto never materialized. In 1971 the railway was extended from Aketi along the Itimbiri river, to Bumba along the

, as the water level of the rivers may be only 40 cm, thus functioning as a

. In the early 2000s, operations on the entire length of the line ceased. The system is currently not operational, and was described by

United Nations Joint Logistics Centre The United Nations Joint Logistics Centre (UNJLC) was created to optimise and complement the logistics capabilities of cooperating agencies within a well-defined crisis area for the benefit of the ongoing humanitarian operation. In 2005 the UNJLC w ...

(UNJLC) in 2006 as 'very degraded'. A few trains ran in 2002/3. Bumba-Aketi was reopened in October 2004 after 14 years non operating. Up to 2008, Radio Okapi mentioned from time to time some trains in the Eastern parts. The line is not mentioned in the UNJLC description of the network. That and its very narrow gauge suggest it may be abandoned. This line and the Bumba river port belong to the Office of the Uele Railways.Information given at the Ministry of Transportation at Gombe in juin 2010.

Operators

*1924: Builder and operator of the company was the Chemins de fer Vicinaux du Congo, CVC, colloquially Vicicongo; (Flemish: Buurtspoorwegen van Congo), based in Brussels. *1960: After independence a Congolese company of the same name based in Aketi took over operations. Later the name was changed to Chemins de Fer Vicinaux Zaire (CVZ). *1974: Societe Nationale des Chemins de Fer Zaïrois (SNCZ), merger of K.D.L., C.F.L, C.V.Z. (Chemins de Fer Vicinaux Zaire), C.F.M.K. and C.F.M. *1991: Dissolution of SNCZ, founding of SNCZ Holding and its subsidiaries O.C.S. (Office des Chemins de Fer du Sud, French Office for the Southern Railway), SFE (Société des Chemins de Fer de l'Est, French for Eastern Railway Company) and CFU (Office des Chemins de Fer of ülés, for French-Uele Railways). Today the Uele railways are state-owned.

References

{{DRC Railways 600 mm gauge railways in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Railway lines opened in 1937 Railway lines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo 1937 establishments in the Belgian Congo