The Modernization Of African Railway By Reconstructing Narrow Gauge Into Standard Gauge:Example Of Cameroon

Africa's rail networks face major challenges because of the scarcity of long-term investments in related infrastructure included in the modernization process.In the wake of the African Railway Union resolutions adopting a policy of modernization and development of the African railways,many governments are experiencing great financial and technical frustrations after the development of the regional and national master plans.Some of these plans,such as the Cameroon National Railway Master Plan(CNRMP),include the construction of new standard gauge lines and the reconstruction and / or conversion of the existing line into standard gauge with the correlation of national and regional interconnection between these future lines and an easy international connection with neighboring networks.We will examine in this work,using modern construction methods and engineering materials,the possibilities for converting the existing metric gauge line precisely the Transcam I(Douala-Yaoundé)trunks in standard gauge and the related technical problems.The dilapidated state of the existing road imposes a minitious technical study based on modern engineering methods including the total review of the signaling.in order to ensure the loads induced by the standard gauge traffic,the track bed layers have been revised and resized;works such as the existing metal bridges will be replaced by reinforced concrete bridges and tunnels abandoned to the profile again respecting the standard gauge clearances.The economic parameters considered in our analysis show that it will be just as easy to build a line parallel to the existing one and to use the two lines parallel to converting the existing line.However,the conversion of such a dense line will require seriousfinancial contributions and therefore a great collaboration between the Cameroonian government and private investors.From a social point of view,it appears that the realization of such a project will have more advantage than disadvantage because of the big change that it will be able to bring on the behaviors of the population notably the reductions of the travel times and job creation,and for the state the increase of the transport capacity which will be able to improve decongestion in the big cities of Doula and Yaoundé.