First heavy-duty railway locomotives arrive in South Darfur capital

The Sudan Railway Corporation celebrated the arrival of the first heavy-duty railway engines in Nyala on Tuesday afternoon after the completion of the upgraded Nyala-Babanusa railway plan.

Railway workers said that the arrival of the heavy-duty engines in Nyala brought a new shift in the speed of trains and an increase in the cargo of goods exported from Port Sudan to Nyala and vice versa, which has not happened since the railway entered service in 1950.

The railway agent in South Darfur, Nasser Hassan Mohammed, announced that there will be two trains for 1,000 passengers from Nyala to Khartoum and vice versa each month and for trips for cargo trains of five to six carriages a month.

He said that the trip from Khartoum to Nyala will now take four days, while in the past, it used to take four days from Ed Daein to Nyala.

The Acting Governor of South Darfur, Sabeel Ahmed Sabeel, said that the arrival of the new heavy-duty railway engines will help with marketing the agricultural and animal exports of the state, especially groundnuts of which the state produces equivalent to 365,000 tons.

He added that Nyala’s products such as gum Arabic can now be marketed in Europe.

He pointed out that the new move contributes to the increase in exports and imports that can be exchanged directly with the outside world from Nyala.