The trains on the Benguela Railroad in Angola are due to reach the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo next December, after being at a standstill for 30 years due to the Angolan civil war, said the chairman of state company Caminhos de Ferro de Benguela, José Carlos Gomes.

The Benguela Railroad is the only railway to link central Africa to the Atlantic Ocean. Construction of the railroad began in March 1903 and was finished on 2 February, 1929. It is 1,344 kilometres long and runs from Lobito to Luau, a municipal area on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, where it links up with the Congolese railway network.

On Tuesday an experimental train arrived in the city of Luena, the capital of the province of Moxico, in eastern Angola. The journey from the city of Cuito, in Bié province, over a distance of some 400 kilometres, took around 14 hours.

From Luau, where the train will arrive in December of this year, the Benguela Railroad links up with the rail systems of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia, and from Zambia it is possible to travel to the cities of Beira (Mozambique) and Dar Es-Salaam (Tanzania), on the Indian Ocean. (macauhub)