Heritage route
Eritrean Railway
Asmara → Massawa · Eritrea
Eritrean Railway in pictures




Photographs by their authors, hosted on Wikimedia Commons · tap through for the licence
- Distance
- 118 km
- Fastest time
- 8 h
- Average speed
- 15 km/h
- Top speed
- 30 km/h
- Operator
- Eritrean Railway
- Train
- 1930s Ansaldo Mallet steam
- Countries
- Eritrea
- In service since
- 1911
Figures are published values, not live data · corrections log
Pre-war Italian Mallet steam locos still claw up 3.5% grades and switchbacks 2,300 m between the Red Sea and Asmara: one of the great colonial mountain railways.
How this line was checked
- Checked against OpenStreetMap: the whole line lies on real track, a median 5 m from it
- Wikipedia has an article for this line
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