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Safari Steam - Southern Hills and Plains |
The railways of Botswana and Swaziland have been marginal to the development of these countries. Railways came early to Botswana, with the Rhodesia Railway being built to link South Africa with colonial Rhodesia, but any benefit to the country was purely coincidental. Passing through largely dry countryside, it was an early candidate for dieselisation and main line steam was phased out of use in the early 1970s. Indeed, in later years of steam it was, in effect, operated by South African Railways. Industrially, though, steam survives today in the Selebi-Phikwe Copper Mine.
On the other hand, Swaziland was one of the last countries in the continent to acquire a railway (in the 1960s) and the original line was built purely to carry iron ore for export through Moçambique. Steam locomotives from that country were used and no passenger service was ever planned. Today it has evolved further with a link to South Africa, but that is beyond the scope of this CD-ROM.
