Railway Museums in Africa

Within my chosen geographical area which excludes North America, most of Europe and Japan, the occurrence of genuine railway museums as opposed to the odd preserved steam locomotive or tourist railway is quite rare. Here you will find a list of known links which describe those I either know about through personal experience or through submissions to my website or which have been located by web searches. Some are no more than (steam) locomotive parks, others have barely a steam locomotive to be seen. It will be a useful quick check list for readers making short visits. I have also included a note of known steam tourist operations where appropriate for Africa, Asia and parts of South America, the latter are covered in more detail in the relevant continent page. By and large the links are to pages which are in English, although these days a web-based automatic translation will normally produce something good enough to get started during a visit.... Please email me with additions and corrections to the address at the end, include a sensible and appropriate subject line to help avoid vanishing into the spam filter.

There are certain umbrella organisations whose sites may be helpful, particularly IATM (International Association of Transport and communications Museums) - see http://www.iatm.org/finished/start_klein.php - railways are necessarily a small sub group. Others are regional and are noted as appropriate.

Another recommended link - http://www.innvista.com/culture/travel/rail/mindex.htm - as of September 2007 it was last updated in February 2007 and less complete than this site for non-mainstream areas, but necessarily it may be updated, but it will be a good source for the USA, Canada, Australasia and Western Europe.

As always Wikipedia is worth a look but when I checked this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_railway_museums it had far fewer entries in my areas than are on this page.

This page covers railway museums in Africa, either scroll down the page or click on a continent for a further menu.

Africa

Egypt

There is a long established museum in Cairo, see http://www.touregypt.net/railmuseum.htm. There are four steam pictures on this page - http://www.railfaneurope.net/pix/ne/Egypt/pix.html. 

Ethiopia

There appears to be a railway museum in Addis Adaba, http://www.steamlocomotive.info suggests a derelict steam locomotive is here, but I have not been able to trace any proper web resources.

Kenya

There is a long established museum in Nairobi, there is no official website but see http://www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail/Kenya/nrm.html, more pictures are on http://sa-transport.co.za/trains/museums/nairobi_railway_museum.html (added 7th July 2007)

There are occasional public and private steam specials - see the Africa section of this site.  

Namibia

The TransNamib Museum is at Windhoek. It only has one narrow gauge steam locomotive (there are a number of others elsewhere in Namibia), but Thomas Kautzor tells me that the small exhibits inside, including photos and documents, are of great interest to railway enthusiasts. See http://www.namibweb.com/railmuseum.htm and http://sa-transport.co.za/trains/museums/transnamib_railway_museum.html (all this added 7th July 2007).

Nigeria

There is a museum near the Nigerian Railways headquarters at Ebute Metta - the only report I have seen of it is on Trevor Heath's site (added 31st August 2007).

Reunion

For an excellent page on the history and remaining relics on the island see http://www.mi-aime-a-ou.com/le_train_de_l_ile_de_la_reunion.htm, the railway museum at Grande Chaloupe (which has a preserved Schneider 0-6-0T and a couple of railcars) must be one of the most remote in the world. James Waite advises that the local tourist office in Saint Denis (otinord@wanadoo.fr) told him that advanced notice of an intended visit is needed - Association ti train lontan Tél : 06 92 85 36 78 (réservation).

Sierra Leone

A museum was established here as part of attempts to rehabilitate the country - click here for my copy of an original official article which is no longer available.

South Africa

There are many steam sites, please consult the Africa section of this site, but arguably most noteworthy are those at Sandstone (http://www.sandstone-estates.com/) and George - see (http://www.onlinesources.co.za/chootjoe/ and http://www.onlinesources.co.za/chootjoe/museum.htm for the associated museum).

Tanzania

There are occasional public and private steam specials - see the Africa section of this site.  

Zambia

There is a museum at Livingstone, there is no official website but see http://www.mapasa.com/railway/railway.htm, http://www.geoffs-trains.com/Museum/livingstonemuseum.html and http://www.sa-transport.co.za/trains/zambia/zambia.html (latter two links added 7th July 2007).

Zimbabwe

There is a long established museum in Bulawayo, there is no official website but see http://www.geoffs-trains.com/Museum/Museumhome.html and http://sa-transport.co.za/trains/museums/bulawayo_railway_museum/brm.html (latter link added 7th July 2007).

There are occasional public and private steam specials.