On Tuesday, December 30, in time for the New Year’s travel rush, TAZARA, the Tanzania Zambia Railway, will finally resume operations of cross-border trains.

A spat between the two railway operators in Zambia and Tanzania over operational issues led to the suspension of cross-border trains in August.

Passengers immediately began to complain for having to change trains, many in fact travel with large quantities of baggage, but it still took over three months to finally agree on trains running all the way again from Dar es Salaam to New Kapiri-Mposhi in Zambia. Come next Tuesday, the first “express train” will leave Dar while the so-called “ordinary train” will operate every Friday.

Not only locals are using the train for affordable long-distance travel but also international travelers are known to take the train, at least one way, to see the often breathtaking landscapes as the train makes its way across Tanzania and then into Zambia. The train is popular with foreign backpacker tourists, too, as a means of relatively safe and cheap travel while allowing them to even stop along the way and then re-board the next train after taking in the sights of the more remote and otherwise difficult to access parts of Tanzania.

The rail line, some 1,860 kilometers of track across some of Africa’s most challenging terrain, was built by the Chinese government some 40+ years ago to assist Zambia with safe access to the Indian Ocean. South Africa had at the time embargoed them as a result of the support Zambia gave to independence movements in Zimbabwe, back then called Rhodesia, and South Africa itself with logistics support and training camps.

The railway was for long in decline and poorly managed resulting in a near financial collapse had it not been for repeated bailouts by the two governments. However, as a result of a series of recent state and ministerial visits between Tanzania and China, commitments have been secured to rehabilitate the line and refurbish locomotives and rolling stock.