Lagos–Kano Standard Gauge Railway
| Lagos–Kano Standard Gauge Railway | |
|---|---|
| Overview | |
| Status |
Abuja–Kaduna operational |
| Operation | |
| Opened | 26 July 2016 (Abuja-Kaduna) |
| Technical | |
| Track gauge | 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in) standard gauge |
| Operating speed | 100 km/h (62 mph) |
Abuja–Kaduna operational
Lagos–Ibadan under construction
The Lagos–Kano Standard Gauge Railway is a planned standard gauge railway across Nigeria, from the Atlantic Ocean port of Lagos to Kano, near the Niger border. The railway will run parallel to the British-built Cape gauge line, which has a lower design capacity and is in a deteriorated condition.
The railway is being built in segments. Only the segment between Abuja and Kaduna has been completed so far, and services began officially in July 2016. The segment between Lagos and Ibadan is under construction.
After Nigeria became independent from Great Britain, the colonial-era railways progressively fell into a state of disrepair. Passenger traffic on the Nigerian railways fell from 11 million in 1964 to 1.6 million in 2003. Freight traffic almost collapsed, falling from 3 million tonnes in 1964 to less than 100,000 tonnes in 2000. In early 2013, it took 31 hours for passenger trains to travel between Lagos and Kano, at an average speed of just 45 km/h.
Although projects have begun to rehabilitate the Cape gauge railways, economic growth in Nigeria has made a standard gauge line desirable. In 2006, the Nigerian government awarded a $8.3 billion contract to the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation to construct a standard gauge railway from Lagos to Kano. Due to an inability to secure funding for the whole project, the Nigerian government decided to build the standard gauge line in segments and rehabilitate the narrow-gauge line in the meantime.
The 187 km segment from Abuja to Kaduna was the first to be built. Abuja was not on the national railway network, as the city was built after Nigeria became independent from Great Britain. Kaduna is an important junction point on the existing Cape gauge railway network, where a branch line departs the Lagos–Nguru line for Kafanchan, on the Port Harcourt–Maiduguri Railway.
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