We have returned to Tororo and we are nearly ready to set off for Kampala! Before we do, it is worth a quick look round. Tororo Rock sits close to the middle of the town with the town-centre and the station to its north and suburbs to its east, west and south and flanked by the town golf-course. The view above is taken from the south side of the rock.An aerial view of Tororo Railway Village on the north side of the town. The picture is taken facing South-East with the town-centre off the picture to the right. On the left of the photograph, Tororo Station and Station Yard can be seen devoid of traffic. The line to Kenya heads off towards the horizon, barely distinguishable from the grass which has overgrown it. [1]Tororo Town looking in a generally northerly direction from the Rock. The Railway Station is in the extreme top right corner of the picture in front of the trees. [2]A picture of Tororo Station taken in 2014. A Uganda Railways Locomotive is in the bay platform possibly prearing to levae for Kampala or in the process of shunting the yard. [3]

Before we set off for Kampala, there is one more thing we need to notice. On the map above there are two sidings leaving the station at its western end. One is short – it provides a rail link for a World Food Programme Warehouse (below). The second is a little more significant. It can be seen heading south in both of the maps immediately above. And can be seen continuing south past Tororo Airport, crossing Airfield Road, running about 300 metres to the west side of Busia Road (A104).

It then turns westward immediately alongside the Jinja-Tororo Raod (A109) to provide the rail link for Tororo Cement Works. This can be seen on the map immediately below.

Tororo Cement Limited (TCL) is the largest manufacturer of cement in Uganda,[4] producing an estimated 1.8 million metric tonnes annually.[5]  In July 2015, TCL began an 86 billion UgSh expansion to increase annual production to 3.0 million metric tonnes.[6][7] Production on the newly completed production line began in March 2018. [8]

On 4th June 2018, Umeme upgrades Tororo Cement Industries power, plant doubles production. [9] An image, from 2009/2010, of the plant, taken from the south-west with Tororo Rock in the background, is shown below. [10]

After having had a good look round Tororo, we set off for Kampala.Class 60 Garratt No. 6023 in Tororo in 1971. [11]The line to Kampala is on the left. The line to Pakwach is on the right!

We leave Tororo is a north-westerly direction following the contours on the north side of the Nagongera Road as far as Achilet (about 5 kilometres outside of Tororo). For the next 10 kilometres the railway stays north of the road until reaching Nagongera, or Nagongora, as the Station is named on the maps below.After Nagongera, the line passed through Budumba.Budumba Station.After Budumba, road and rail combine to cross the bridge over the Mpologoma River.The line then splits with the northerly line crossing the Jinja-Mbale Road. The shorter route to Jinja goes via Busembatia and along the Jinja-Mbale Road.After Busembatia (where a link headed off to meet the more northerly line) the shorter more southerly line continues to Iganga (top right, below), Magamaga (bottom left, below) along the Jinja-Mbale-Totoro Road (A109) and then into Jinja.

The line through the station at Iganga runs North-South on the West side of the town-centre as shown in the adjacent satellite image and map.

It then runs roughly parallel to the A109 before passing north of Bukoyo. Which is a reasonable size town, for some reason not marked on the route map roughly where Namasoga and Bulanga are shown above.Magamaga is another decent sized town on the route of the line, indeed the railway passes right through the middle of the settlement, but there is no evidence of a station. It seems highly unlikely to me that there would not have been a halt somewhere at Magamaga given the size of the town, even if it is no longer in use.Just to the west of Magamaga, the line crosses the main Jinja-Mabale-Tororo highway (A109) by means of a bridge and then travels on the south side of the road and close to Lake Victoria before reaching Jinja.On its final approach to Jinja, the line travels alongside a branch-line which fed industry on the shores of Lake Victoria in Masese and Walukuba, before joining the more northerly route once again as it enters Jinja Station.

The more northerly route of the mainline passed through only one named Railway Station which appears on OpenStreetMap, that of Namaganda (Namabuga) – which is about a third in from the left on the map below, near the top of the image. There was also a station close to Kamuli and at one time a branch-line which left the northerly route at Mbulamuti.The northerly route is considerably more torturous. As it seeks to maintain a steady grade the contours mean that is snakes down to Jinja and travels considerably further all told. The locations of Namaganda (Namabuga) and Mbulamuti are shown on the maps and satellite images below.Namaganda (Namabuga).Kamuli was some distance from the route of the northern line (over 10 kilometres along the Jinja-Kamuli Road). The station was reached by trains coming from Tororo after crossing the Kamuli-Iganga Road near Kitayunjwa. The first picture below is a satellite image of Kamuli Station site. The second image shows Kamuli Railway Station in 1969. The third image is a map of the station site from OpenStreetmap.Tribal Class 31, No. 3139, ‘Pokomo’ was built by the Vulcan Foundry in 1956 and was allocated to the Uganda Railways in 1977. It is seen heading its train at Kamuli in 1969. Kamuli, the first station eastbound after Mbulamuti, was by-passed by first and second class Mail Trains after the Tororo-Namaga deviation was completed in 1962 but the all stations Nairobi/Kampala second and third class passenger trains were still routed over the original main line via Mbulamuti which was the junction for Namasagali (c) Glyn Constantine. [10]The railway travels on to cross the the Kamuli-Jinja Road as shown below and heads for Mbulamuti.Mbulamuti.It is not at all clear, to me, where the station for the junction at Mbulamuti was, from the satellite images at least. The location of the junction can be seen on the satellite image. The mainline enters the image at the top right, it is only vaguely visible. It drifts down in a south-westerly direction through the middle of the word ‘Pentecostal’ to some trees and then curves away to the east, leaving the image bottom right. The road, which leaves the route of the mainline at the trees runs along the route of the branch-line.

The branch from Mbulamunti travelled north on the east side of the Victoria Nile. First it curved around the south side of Mbulamuti, and then sinuously followed the contours north. We will make this branch the subject of another post in this series.

Both lines enter Jinja Railway Station from the North, as can be seen on the adjacent map.

I had the joy of sitting for over 6 hours in Jinja Railway Station in 1994. The passenger train I was on was held up by the derailement of a goods train between Jinja and Kampala.

Our journey, in this post, ends here at Jinja Railway Station with a series of photographs of the location which can be seen below.

In our next post we will set off from Jinja, cross the Nile and head on towards Kampala.

References

1. https://mobile.twitter.com/sgr_uganda/status/786565833401180164, accessed on 3rd June 2018.
2. http://ug.geoview.info/tororo_town,44672213p, accessed on 4th June 2018.
3. https://ekitibwakyabuganda.wordpress.com/category/history; & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tororo#/media/File:Uganda_railways_assessment_2010-14.jpg, accessed on 4th June 2018.
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tororo_Cement_Limited, accessed on 4th June 2018
5. https://www.newvision.co.ug/new_vision/news/1309352/cma-discuss-funding-options-oil-minerals-meet, accessed on 4th June 2018.
6. https://www.newvision.co.ug/new_vision/news/1331523/tororo-cement-sh86b-expansion, accessed on 4th June 2018.
7. http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/business/Hima-Cement-to-invest-USD40m-in-new-Tororo-plant-/2560-3393614-12oln7c/index.html, accessed on 4th June 2018.
8. http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Cement-prices-shoot-up-amidst-scarcity/688334-4314252-q95be6/index.html, accessed on 4th June 2018.
9. https://thelocal.ug/umeme-upgrades-tororo-cement-industries-power-plant-doubles-production/, accessed on 4th June 2018.
10. http://www.mccrow.org.uk/eastafrica/eastafricanrailways/KampalaNairobi.htm, accessed on 1st June 2018.
11. https://www.westonlangford.com, accessed on 1st June 2018.

The featured image above shows one of the construction trains used for the extension from Gulu to Pakwach,© M. Hardy-Randall. [8]

Our journey in this post begins at Gulu and when we leave the town we head west towards Pakwach. We start this post with a couple of photographs taken in Gulu.

111510: Gulu, Uganda. An Officers Inspection Car No 116, taken in August 1971, (c) Weston Langford. [1]

Level Crossing tarmacked over at Gulu, taken around 2010. [2]

Leaving Gulu Station we head for Pakwach. Thanks to Thomas Kautzor, I now know that the stations between Gulu and Pakwach were: Paliri, Bwobo, Aparanga, Pai Halt, Lolim and Pakwach East. Finding evidence of these stations has been difficult. Part of the problem with identifying locations is that the station names seem not to relate easily to the named locations on maps.

Out of Gulu, the line heads initially in a generally westerly direction and the image below is typical of the countryside through which the line travels.

The trajectory of the line changes when it reaches Alelele. It heads in a south-westerly direction towards Alero.

After Alero, the line travels in a south-southwesterly direction through Nwoya and on through Patit and Patera to Aparanga where reports indicate that there is a railway station of sorts. [3] It can be just picked out centre-left on the satellite image below. I have found no photographs of the station/halt.

The next station I can find any possible location for along the line was some distance further to the West at Lolim. On the way to Lolim, the railway and the Gulu-Arua Road followed almost the same course through, or close to, Lalem, Purongo, Wianomo and Wianaka.

Near Wianaka, the road skirts the northern edge of the Murchison Falls National Park. The railway predates the formation of the National Park and so transgresses its boundaries, (see the left hand side of the map above).

Going on to Lolim, while the railway snakes around, the road from Wianaka follows the Park boundary, (as above). The most likely location of the Railway Station at Lolim is shown in the satellite image below, which is just off the left of the map above. Again, there are no photos of the station and there is little evidence on the satellite image to confirm its location.

From Lolim, the railway and road continued on a relatively similar alignment. The railway follows the contours to minimise gradients, the road takes a more direct route. Both meet short of the bridge over the Albert Nile near Pakwach.

By the time the bridge is reached the railway and the road are on exactly the same alignment with the rails let into the surface of the road. In the first set of images below, the rails are clearly visible in the tarmac surface of the road over the bridge. [4][5][6]

The second couple of photographs show the bridge from along the banks of the Albert Nile. [7][2]

Arriving at Pakwach the railway turned to the West off the bridge. At present, the line stops at the end of the road/rail bridge. The line passed through the centre of Pakwach and was extended, in 1969, to Arua.

All evidence of that extension has possibly disappeared under the formation of the Pakwach-Arua Road. There are short sections where the road alignment does not seem to have covered the old railway formation. One example is shown in the adjacent satellite image. In the Mbaro area, where, over a short length, the road travels north-south before reaching Oryang, the railway alignment can just be picked out to the east-side of the road.

However, this route has some questions attached to it. … When the Pakwach-Arua Road reaches Nebbi it turns through an sharp, acute angle at a roundabout. The alignment of the road in Nebbi is vary unlikely to be the alignment of the original metre-gauge line. There is a possible cut-off route for the line which avoids Nebbi. Its alignment can be picked out on the satellite image below. It starts on the eastern edge of the image close to the village of Namrwodo and runs just north of west across the image before turning north-west and then meeting the Gulu-Arua Road once again.

We know that the railway reached Arua in 1969. It may have taken this route or another route and I cannot find enough evidence to establish the actual route at present Nor can I identify the site of the Station in Arua. This is an unsatisfactory end to the story of this line. Perhaps in due course I will find more information, or possibly someone who has more information will come forward.

In the next Uganda Railways post we return to Tororo, and begin to focus once again on the mainline to Kampala.

References

1. http://www.westonlangford.com/images/gallery/four-days-in-uganda, accessed on 29th May 2018.
2. http://www.works.go.ug/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/1604-Tororo-Pakwach_Consultancy_of_feasibility_Final%20Report_2016-10-18.pdf, accessed on 1st June 2018.
3. http://ug.geoview.info/aparanga_station,8200502, accessed 3rd June 2018.
4. http://www.celebritypix.us/celebrities/pakwach-bridge-celebrities-88877.html, accessed on 3rd June 2018.
5. http://trip-suggest.com/uganda/northern-region/pakwach, accessed on 3rd June 2018.
6. http://justasurferdude.blogspot.com/2012/05/we-all-are-one.html, accessed on 3rd June 2018.
7. https://www.westnileweb.com/special-features/features/our-regions-have-too-much-potential-how-are-you-developing-them, accessed on 3rd June 2018.
8. https://friendsoftherail.com/forum/download/file.php?id=4524&mode=view, accessed on 22nd July 2022.

The first picture in this post is a monochrome image taken at Soroti. a Class 60 Garratt arrives with its passenger train from Tororo. The second image captures a busy moment in Soroti Station Yard as another Class 60 musters goods wagons for its northwesterly travelling mixed passenger and goods train.

The third picture claims to show a busy time on the platform at Soroti. The station building is typical of many on the route but does not match that at Soroti, so, take your pick. Any of the stations shown in the last post or some below could be the location of this photograph! The caption on the original image says … “This photograph shows Soroti Railway Station 1956. It was a bustling and important railway cargo terminus for hauling of exports from Uganda to Mombasa Port, © Tahir Mirza.” [2]111487: Soroti Station, Uganda Westbound Passenger service behind a Class 60 Garratt, © Weston Langford. [3]A typical rural scene in Uganda. [4]

We set off from Soroti Station and the line swings immediately first to the Northeast and then back to the Northwest and then crosses the Soroti to Moroto Road. As we travel on we pass through or close to Ajikidaki, Nyalai, Okunguru, Obule, Omgariama, Mwogo, Aloi and Bar before arriving at Lira. The named stations on the route are Achuna and Aloi. First Achuna:111489: Achuna Uganda Westbound Passenger 2431, © Weston Langford. [3]111493: Achuna Station 1971, © Weston Langford. [3]

Then comes Aloi:

Above: 111497: Aloi Railway Station, Uganda Westbound Passenger Service with No. 2431, © Weston Langford. [3]

Adjacent: Typical of the condition of the line close to Aloi before renovation, © John Otim. [5]

After the small village stop at Aloi the line heads in a West-northwest direction, and then a westerly direction to Lira.Level Crossing near Lira.[6]Lira Railway Station.The city of Lira (above) and the location of the railway Station (below).I could find no photographs of Lira Station to put on this blog. There are a few pictures on the line from immediately around the city of Lira: These three pictures (above) were taken on the first journey for a train along the line on 20 years – in 2013. [7] The third picture shows the condition of the line at that time between Lira and Gulu.

North of Lira Station the line crosses the Lira-Kitgum Road and then travels through or near Alito and Kole, Otwal and Ayomlony, Lamin-Lyeka and Lokwir. At Lokwir the line allies itself for a time with what is now known as the Jomo Kenyatta Road, following it until it reaches Lakwatomer. It then heads west-northwest to Gulu.Kole (above and below).There are no signs of a formal station at Kole, however, the build up of a community at the road rail crossing which is some distance from the town of Kole (which is away to the East) suggests that trains must have stopped here in the past.There is a station at Otwal. It is shown in the satellite image below and location on the map above in the bottom right-hand corner.Lamin Lyeka – a village predominantly of traditional hut homes. The railway is in the bottom left of the satellite image.As the railway leaves Lamin-Lyeka and passes close to Opit (before reaching Lokwir) it runs through another village of traditional homes. In fact, the countryside in this area of Uganda is littered with  traditional round dwellings, whereas in the south-west of the country traditional homes are usually rectangular in shape.

The railway line enters Gulu from the south-east and turns to a north-westerly direction as it runs through the station site (below).The tracks approaching Gulu Railway Station. [10]111504: Gulu, Uganda No. 2305 in August 1971 © Weston Langford. [3]111506: Gulu, Uganda Nos. 2431 and 2301 in August 1971 © Weston Langford. [3]111507: Gulu, Uganda Nos. 2431 and 2301 in August 1971 © Weston Langford. [3]A survey by the US Army showed Gulu Station in use for growing maize in 2014. [11]Wagon abandoned at Gulu railway station. [12]President Museveni (in hat) in the cab of a lcoc at the commencement of the Rift Valley Railway operations at the weekend in Gulu District (October 2013), (c) Cissy Makumbi. [8]

President Museveni flags off a train in Gulu, Uganda. [9]

Our survey of the line will continue from Gulu with the next post.

References

1. http://www.mccrow.org.uk/EastAfrica/EastAfricanRailways/UgandaBranches.htm, accessed on 2nd June 2018.
2. https://www.britishempire.co.uk/article/sorotirailwaystation.htm, accessed on 2nd June 2018.
3. http://www.westonlangford.com/images/gallery/four-days-in-uganda, accessed on 1st June 2018.
4. https://www.flickr.com/photos/usarmyafrica/5117351511/in/photostream, accessed on 1st June 2018.
5. https://suncolor.wordpress.com/tag/northern-uganda, accessed on 2nd June 2018.
6. http://www.works.go.ug/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/1604-Tororo-Pakwach_Consultancy_of_feasibility_Final%20Report_2016-10-18.pdf, accessed on 1st June 2018.
7. https://skyworksafrica.wordpress.com/2013/09/15/train-spotting-in-uganda, accessed on 31st May 2018.
8. http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Museveni-opens-Gulu-railway-line/688334-2049554-vr9xhk/index.html, accessed on 3rd June 2018.
9. http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/Chinese-firm-goes-to-court-over-Uganda-s-railway-project-/2558-2413758-format-sitemap-11v50d0z/index.html, accessed on 3rd June 2018.
10. https://markandmaryinuganda.wordpress.com/tag/rift-valley-railway, accessed on 3rd June 2018.
11. http://www.globalconstructionreview.com/news/uganda-seeks-8bn-rail-funding-china272807615431122, accessed on 3rd June 2018.
12. https://ugandaradionetwork.com/story/rvr-why-uganda-kenya-shouldnt-have-signed-concession-deal, accessed on 3rd June 2018.