Dar to Kigoma on Central Line takes Three Days

By Mdau A.L.

On 7th June at 10:31PM the adventure began, it hardly took an hour of motion, before we all lost control to the natural taste of sleep, due to trip preparation and tiresome 3 hrs of wait for the journey to begin nobody in my family of 4 could resist any longer.

When I worked up, an awkward voice of random collisions  and shaking of train compartment was growing stronger and stronger, I consulted my clock just to learn that it was 4:00AM on the next day. outside no sign of any building could be seen, just bushes and forests. The Train would remain silent for some 2 to 3 minutes before it begin another fruitless attempt to continue with the journey which would be stopped by loud sounds of collision at the compartment joints and skidding on the rails. 

This continues  with an increasing interval between attempts, until everybody was up at around 6AM.  We latter realized that we were still a long way before reaching Moro town. Later on, some random news was heard.. Engine has failed so another engine from Moro would be on duty soon. After a while we left the venue sluggishly. 

We reached Moro town at 1:00PM, in a very slow but chancy motion, full of shaking and chaotic collisions.  From Moro The same story continued the Engine was even weaker, as a results we reached Dom at 11:00PM and left the station of our capital just after the Mid night. This time a better engine was put on duty and we managed to arrive at Tabora Station at 9:00Am next day.

 The Final journey to Kigoma was unthinkable, a 16 hours trip. We left Tabora at 1:00PM and arrived Kigoma Station at 6:00AM the next day, while Uvinza-Kazuramimba only, took 6 hours due to similar reasons: engine powerlessness. While in Tabora, a hard a rare opportunity to chat with one of the senior TRL staff, who cautious hinted about the disaster of locomotives(engines). In short TRL is on its way to mutually if its ICU status is not updated soon.

On my way back, it took me only 10hour to Kahama plus 12 hours to Dar on the next day, as I have to spend a night in Kahama due to longer queue which requires more than a week to book a ticket on the famous Adventure Connection bus nonstop from kigoma. This is Kigoma, the home events and hopes, thanks to leka dutigite singers for their incredible union on reviving the  community hope.