All aboard the sparkling railway breaking new ground for East Africa

Shaped and coloured like the country’s rare gemstone, tanzanite, the sparkling new railway terminal in Dar es Salaam is a symbol of Tanzania’s transport ambitions.

The glass panels gleam in the sun, like an outsize version of the prismatic bluish-purple gem that glitters in the light.

The trains – powered by electricity, a first for the region – carry passengers from the commercial hub to the capital, Dodoma, in less than four hours, half the time it takes by road.

It marks the starting point of one of the country’s strategic projects – the building of a 2,560km (1,590-mile) Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) envisaged to connect key cities and link up with neighbours Burundi, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

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