By Valentine Marc Nkwame

While trains rarely come to Arusha, the next such locomotive to venture here needs to move carefully on the local rail lines, because some of them are in pathetic shape and may just be setting a stage for train accidents. The Rail bars that run across the Factory road, near the Unga Limited roundabout, for instance, happen to be so loose that despite being engraved into the tarmac road, they constantly reel, jolt and wobble, whenever a car goes by.

The ‘Factory road’ is one of the busiest tracks, handling varieties of heavy and light trucks, including passenger vehicles. The road connects Arusha town with the industrial areas , where there are many factories, oil depots and large warehouses. There is also the Unga-Limited residential area which is the most densely populated part of the Municipality.

If the steel rods wobble even when a light car move across them, at the ‘level crossing,’ juncture, people here are not sure of the possible effect that a ‘hundred-and-twenty’ tonne, train engine on its own would have on the rails, not to mention the several carriages and wagons it may be towing along.

To make matters worse, the vehicle barring rod at the Unga Limited railway crossing has rusted itself rigid, which means local motorists have to rely on both luck and sharp instincts whenever driving across the junction lest they crash into, or the on coming train crashes onto them.

Also, the metallic batons, dating back to the East African Railways time (they have the letters EAR embossed on them) are also getting rusty and in most places, overgrown with weeds and shrubs due to lack of maintenance for extended period. Some of the metallic beams supporting the railroad tracks, in most parts, are almost ‘invisible,’ having sunken deep into the ground, while the wooden beams are rotting away.

The Arusha Railway Station is also totally abandoned. Dust, cobwebs and leaky roofs, are slowly but surely eating it away and turning the once busy terminal in the seventies and eighties into ruins. Neither the local TRC officials nor any human being could be seen last week at the rail port when reporters visited. It wasn’t easy to tell when exactly was the door to the ‘Station Master’s’ office was last opened.

With no life that could be detected at the Railway terminal, it wasn’t easy to contact the local officials of Tanzania Railways Corporation to comment on the pathetic conditions of their infrastructures in the Municipality. Arusha town is the final station for the Northern bound railway lines.

The railway yard, on which stands what used to be the train repairing workshop, is currently a promising ‘Maize and beans’ farm, while an area adjacent to the Station’s main entrance has been ‘officially’ turned into a second hand clothes mall, completely with a permanent structure, courtesy of the Arusha Municipal Council officials. The Market was inaugurated by President Jakaya Kikwete, last February.

TRC trains no longer serve the Arusha Destination, but the company’s locomotive engines drive into the Arusha terminal, sometimes dragging along a couple of empty cargo wagons.