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24-655: The city was founded in 1843 and owes its existence to the bay of the same name having been chosen as the sea terminus of the Benguela railway to the far interior, passing through Luau to Katanga in the Democratic Republic of the Congo . The city is located on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. The population of the municipality is 393,079 (2014) in an area of 3,648 km². The municipality consists of

48-474: Is twinned with: Benguela railway The Benguela Railway ( Portuguese : Caminho de Ferro de Benguela (CFB) ) is a Cape gauge railway line that runs through Angola from west to east, being the largest and most important railway line in the country. It also connects to Tenke in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) , and to the Cape to Cairo Railway (connecting the city of Kindu (DRC) to

72-706: Is an Angolan state-owned company responsible for the administration of the Angolan stretch of the Benguela Railway . The company's headquarters are in the city of Lobito . Between 1902 and 2001 the company was a private limited company, later a limited liability company (SARL), constituted to build and operate the Benguela Railway concession, granted by the Portuguese government through a contract dated 28 November 1902, and approved by decree on

96-666: Is located in Lobito Bay on a sandspit approximately 4.8 km long. The port is administered by the Empresa Portuaria do Lobito. The Port of Lobito handles 2,000,000 tonnes of cargo and 370 ships annually, and along with economic development in the Benguala region, port facilities are under expansion. Lobito does not have its own airport. The city is located 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) from Catumbela Airport and 33 kilometres (21 mi) from Benguela Airport . Lobito

120-545: The Angolan Civil War (1975–2002). With peace and stability, in the 2000s, Lobito started the process of reconstruction and resumed its path to development. Lobito experiences a mild tropical arid climate with few temperature extremes. The winters are extremely dry and warm, while summers are relatively wet and hotter. Lobito is the terminus of the Benguela Railway The Port of Lobito

144-819: The Lobito Atlantic Railway company secured a 30-year concession for railway services. This joint venture involved Trafigura , a Singapore-based company, Mota-Engil , headquartered in Portugal, and Vecturis SA, a Belgium-based rail operator. The concession agreement encompassed the entire 1,300km railway line in Angola, extending to the 400km line into the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) (up to Kolwezi ), and also includes any potential service extensions in Zambia. To support their operations,

168-512: The communes Canjala, Egipto Praia and Lobito. Lobito, was built on a sandspit and reclaimed land, with one of Africa's finest natural harbours , protected by a 5 km long sandspit. The old municipality ( concelho ) was created in 1843 by the Portuguese administration . The town was also founded in 1843 by order of Maria II of Portugal , and its harbour works were begun in 1903. It wasn't until 1843 that Maria II of Portugal approved

192-773: The LAR mineral terminal at the Port of Lobito the following month, with the docking of MV Lindsaylou , a bulk cargo vessel, on 12 July 2024, with cargo later transferred to train cars to journey to the DRC. In the Tolunda rail accident on 22 September 1994, damaged brakes caused a train to plunge into a canyon, killing 300. Empresa do Caminho de Ferro de Benguela-E.P. The Empresa do Caminho de Ferro de Benguela-E.P. (ECFB-EP; in English: Railway Company of Benguela )

216-568: The border to the Belgian Congo was completed in 1929. The primary purpose was to facilitate export trade, while "the domestic Angolan traffic would be of secondary importance." Passenger trains also ran between Lubumbashi and Lobito, connecting with passenger ship services to Europe. This provided a shorter route for Europeans working in the Katangan and Zambian Copperbelt, and the name "Benguela Railway", or also "Katanga-Benguela railway",

240-497: The border, to Dilolo (DRC) . From there to Tenke, the railway is operated by the Société nationale des Chemins de fer du Congo . The railway is Cape gauge , 1,067 mm ( 3 ft 6 in ), which is used by most mainline railways in southern Africa. The maximum design speed is 90 km per hour. The design capacity is 20 million tons of cargo and 4 million passengers per year. There are 67 stations and 42 bridges along

264-696: The city of Port Elizabeth in South Africa). The line terminates at the port of Lobito on the Atlantic coast, from where Angola exports a wide variety of products, including minerals (from the Copperbelt region), food, industrial components and livestock. The section from Lobito to Luau is run by the Empresa do Caminho de Ferro de Benguela-E.P. It crosses the Luao River , which lies on

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288-497: The company committed to investing US$ 455,000,000 in Angola and up to US$ 100,000,000 in the DRC. The awarding of the concessions took place in the presence of Presidents João Lourenço of Angola, Félix Tshisekedi of the DRC, and Hakainde Hichilema of Zambia. Expected to operate at least 1555 wagons and 30 locomotives in Angola, an initial 275 wagons were ordered by contract from South Africa in June 2024. Operations launched at

312-407: The early 1970s, the railway was operated entirely by steam locomotives, oil-fired from the coast to Cubal, and then wood-fired from Cubal to the interior. Wood was supplied by eucalyptus trees grown on company-owned tree plantations . Steam locomotives outnumbered diesels as late as 1987. Soon after Angola gained its independence from Portugal in 1975, the Angolan Civil War broke out. The railway

336-474: The foundation of the town, which had by then been known as Catumbela das Ostras ( Catumbela of Oysters ) Large developments, however, were not stimulated until the completion in 1928 of the important Benguela Railway , which connected Portuguese Angola with the Belgian Congo . Under Portuguese rule, the port was one of Angola's busiest, and the busiest of Africa, exporting agricultural produce from

360-631: The interior and handling transit trade from the mines of southeastern Belgian Congo and of Northern Rhodesia . Fishing , tourism and services were also important. The carnival in Lobito was also one of the most renowned and popular in Portuguese Angola. After the 25 April 1974 Carnation Revolution in Lisbon, Angola was offered independence. Lobito's port activities were highly limited by disruptions to railway transit and high insecurity during

384-951: The railway was reconstructed between 2006 and 2014 by the China Railway Construction Corporation at a cost of $ 1.83 billion. 100,000 Angolans were employed on the railway reconstruction. Trains reached Huambo in 2011, Kuito in 2012, and Luau near the Congolese border in 2013. The rebuilt railway was formally inaugurated in February 2015. According to Jornal de Angola in May 2012, Empresa do Caminho de Ferro de Benguela-E.P. employed 1,321 workers, and transported 129,430 passengers and 5,640 tons of goods in 2011. Two trains per day run between Lobito and Benguela, one per week to Huambo, and three per week between Lobito and Cubal . On 5 March 2018, ore transport

408-499: The route of the railway. The highest point on the railway is 1,854 metres (6,083 ft). The railway line roughly follows old trade routes between the ancient trading centre of Benguela and its hinterland of the Bié plateau. In 1899, the Portuguese government initiated the construction of the railway to give access to the central Angolan plateau and the mineral wealth of the then Congo Free State . A concession, running for 99 years,

432-630: The same date. This contract, known as the "Williams Contract", was concluded between the Government of Portugal , represented by António Teixeira de Sousa , who was at the time Minister of the Navy and Overseas, and the Scottish engineer Robert Williams , who in exchange for the concession guarantees was obliged to build and operate a railway line from the port of Lobito to the eastern border of Angola, and respective branches in Angolan territory. Under

456-556: The terms of that contract, the exploration concession was valid for 99 years and ended on 28 November 2001, reverting to the Angolan State, as successor to the Portuguese State in the respective contract, all fixed and current means of the company. On 6 September 2003, the Angolan government decreed the re-creation of the company, changing its name to "Railway Company of Benguela-E.P.", in short ECFB-EP, and managed by

480-549: Was 90% owned by Tanganyika Concessions (Tanks), a London-based holding company. Société Générale de Belgique purchased a minority share in Tanks in 1923 and acquired a controlling interest in 1981. The Belgian company remained the controlling owner of the railway when the concession expired in 2001, at which point ownership of the railway passed to the Angolan government. After the Angolan Civil War ended in 2002,

504-433: Was granted to Sir Robert Williams on 28 November 1902. His Benguela Railway Company took over the construction which commenced on 1 March 1903. Messrs Pauling & Co. and Messrs Griffiths & Co were contracted to build sections of the railway. By 1914, when World War I started, 500 kilometres (310 mi) had been completed. Construction was halted until 1920 after which the railway's connection to Luau at

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528-472: Was heavily damaged during the war and progressively fell into disuse. The workshops in Huambo were destroyed. Ballast cars had to be coupled to the front of locomotives to detonate mines. By 1992, only 340 km (210 mi) of the railway remained in operation. When the 99-year concession expired in 2001, only 34 km (21 mi) remained in service, along the coast from Benguela to Lobito. The railway

552-520: Was restarted from the Tenke Fungurume Mine , in the DRC, from where copper and cobalt are extracted, and the cargo transported to the port of Lobito . From that date the railway went into full operation, connecting the city of Tenke to the city of Lobito. In April 2023 the Angolan government confirmed funding to build a new 260km railway from Luena on the Benguela Railway to Saurimo, the capital of Lunda Sul province. On July 4, 2023,

576-620: Was sometimes used loosely to refer to the entire Lubumbashi–Lobito route, rather than the Tenke–Lobito section to which it strictly applies. In its heyday, the Benguela Railway was the shortest way to transport mineral riches from the Congo to Europe. The line proved very successful and profitable, especially in the early 1970s after Zambia closed its border with the then Rhodesia . The railway reached an operational peak in 1973 when it transported 3.3 million tons of cargo, generated freight revenues of $ 30 million, and had 14,000 employees. Until

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