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These notes are taken (with permission) from the Friends of The
Rail Forum, specifically http://www.friendsoftherail.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=147&t=1254&p=3517#p3517.
Click here for a 2011 revisit.
John Ashworth writes of his visit ca 2002/3::
These two old steam engines are at
Nzara, near Yambio, in the far south western corner of southern Sudan. There's a massive industrial estate in the middle of the rain forest. It was built during Anglo-Egyptian Condominium times in 1953, mainly to process cotton. It's now fairly derelict, as successive northern governments downplayed the cotton industry in the south, and war eventually degraded the economy, but it's still standing and parts of it are in use. The director was an elderly engineer who has been there since it opened in 1953! They have the original visitors book, a huge leather-bound tome which has the signatures of royalty and presidents - and now me.
Of the two engines, one is in operating condition. It was not in steam the day I visited, but there was evidence of recent activity, and people assured me that it's still used to drive a sawmill. They were proud of the repairs they had made, including local manufacture of some parts.
The factory still has all its cotton processing machines in huge sheds. They had been run for a few hours relatively recently as a demonstration for the then southern leader, the late Dr John
Garang, but had consumed a vast amount of diesel. In other parts of the factory agricultural tools were being manufactured, using small diesel generators for power.
The main power for the factory used to come from gas generated by burning charcoal. At some point (I think in the 1960s) it was converted to diesel to be "modern". During the 22 year civil war, and at the time of my visit, diesel was scarce - but the factory was surrounded by a rain forest that could have provided endless supplies of charcoal if only the old technology had been left in place.
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