page_title: History of rail transport in Togo
section_title: Republic of Togo
hierarchical_section_title: History of rail transport in Togo / Republic of Togo
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Zug von Lomé nach Kpalimé auf einem Unterwegsbahnhof. Français&#160;: Train de Lomé à Kpalimé dans une gare intermédiaire.
context_page_description: Rail transport in Togo began in 1905.
context_section_description: Togo became independent in 1960.  Under the influence of a variety of romantic commentaries about Togo's rail and colonial legends, a perception has developed that the newly independent Togo inherited a functioning rail network from the German colonial period, and that that network has since been ruined.  Yet the truth is that at independence the Togolese rail vehicle fleet was obsolete.
  The newly independent Togo procured new passenger carrying railcars from Renault and de Dietrich, and a single railcar from Soulé, as a reaction to the existing competition from road transport. Even so, as early as the 1960s there were proposals for the total abandonment of Togo's rail network.
  Since 1961, a 22 km (14 mi) long, private metre gauge line has served to link the phosphate mine at Hahotoe north of Lake Togo operated by Compagnie Togolaise des Mines du Bénin (CTMB) until 2007, and by Société Nouvelle des Phosphates du Togo (SNPT) since then, to a jetty on the coast at Kpémé. It is one of the two sub-networks that are still in operation today.
  In 1970, the station building at Lomé station was rebuilt. The German colonial era goods and locomotive sheds, however, were left almost unchanged.
  The last expansion of the network occurred in 1971, with the opening of a new line to Tabligbo branching in an easterly direction off the Lomé–Blitta railway at Togblékové.  According to one source, that branch line is still in operation, but an earlier source claims that the branch was closed and lifted before the end of the 1970s.  The branch was constructed to carry raw materials for cement production.
  As of about 1980, the railway network in Togo was operated by 20 diesel locomotives, ten railcars, sixty passenger cars and 375 wagons.  At that time, approximately 1.5 million passengers and 112,000 long tons (114,000 t) of freight were carried on the network annually.
  In 1985, the line from Lomé to Aného was decommissioned east of the junction with the main line.  In 1999, the Lomé-Kpalimé line, and the main line from Lomé to Blita, including the Agbonou–Atakpamé branch, were closed from the point 19 km north of Lomé.   There have been conflicting reports as to the state of the remaining network since then.
caption: A Lomé–Kpalimé passenger train at an intermediate station, 1990.
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