page_title: Kabwe
section_title: Headquarters of Zambia Railways
hierarchical_section_title: Kabwe / Headquarters of Zambia Railways
caption_attribution_description: English: The building of a railway as part of Rhodesian Railways near Kabwe, Zambia then Broken Hill sometime around 1906.
context_page_description: Kabwe is the capital of the Zambian Central Province with a population estimated at 202,914 at the 2010 census. Named Broken Hill until 1966, it was founded when lead and zinc deposits were discovered in 1902. Kabwe also has a claim to being the birthplace of Zambian politics as it was an important political centre during the colonial period. It is an important transportation and mining centre.
context_section_description: The first railway in the country, operated by Rhodesian Railways when the territory was administered as North-Western Rhodesia and North-Eastern Rhodesia, reached the Broken Hill mine as early as 1906, and the town became the northern base for the railway, which was the second biggest employer after the mining industry. A locomotive maintenance facility was constructed there. In 1909 the railway reached Ndola in what was to become the Copperbelt. 
  The railway workers' unions played a large role in the politics of the country. In racially segregated colonial times before Africans had the vote, the town was the seat of Roy Welensky, leader of the powerful Rhodesia Railway Workers Union (RRWU), who became Prime Minister of the ill-fated Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, which was opposed by the Northern Rhodesia Railway Trade Union (the black Africans' union) led by Dixon Konkola and also based in Kabwe.
  Today, the town is the headquarters of Zambia Railways but employment levels on the railway have been heavily cut.
caption: Part of the railway near Kabwe under construction (ca. 1906)
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