After damage suffered by the railway during World War II, the section between Massawa and Asmara was dismantled partially and was only rebuilt in the 1990s by the Eritrean authorities.

With the short building time and the simultaneous flow of some common equipment and materials to the national railway yards, e.g. metallic plate ties (sleepers), it was necessary to acquire these from France to some extent.

[4] Progress was slow, thanks to the long climb up the mountains to the high plateau of inland Eritrea, and the substantial civil engineering works required; the line reached Asmara in 1911.

It was extended to Keren in 1922, Agat in 1925, Agordat in 1928, and finally Bishia in 1932, for a total length of 280 km (174 mi).

Bishia (Biscia in Italian) proved to be the end, even though the builders had ambitions of reaching the Sudan Railways line.

Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia led to resources being diverted elsewhere, including the upgrading of the line from Massawa to Asmara to handle more traffic.

Even with the tighter turns and narrower right-of-way allowed by a narrow-gauge railway, the line required 65 bridges (including a fourteen-arch viaduct crossing the Obel River) and 39 tunnels,[5] the longest being 320 m (1,050 ft).

After 1942, the railway (damaged during the East Africa Campaign and by Italian guerrillas) was abandoned from Agordat to Biscia.

Much of the infrastructure was destroyed during the following years of war, and both sides used materials salvaged from the railway for fortification and other purposes.

Eritrea won its independence from Ethiopia in 1993, and in 1994 the Eritrean president declared that rebuilding the railway was a priority for the new nation.

During the war years a spirit of self-reliance had been built up, and the Eritreans refused foreign loans and expensive rework.

Renovation of the main line began from Massawa westbound, recovering rails and steel ties.

While the surviving equipment is sufficient for such a limited service, the purchase or building of more is necessary to provide a serious form of transportation over the length of the line.

In 2007, The Eritrean Railroad Authority requested funding to continue the Italian-era plan to extend the route to Tesseney and provide an opportunity for Sudan to efficiently use the Port of Massawa.

These small 0-4-0 tank engines were and are the standard shunter locomotives of the system, built between 1927 and 1937 by the firm of Breda in Milan.

The purpose of the red paint is to make cracks and breakages in the locomotive's important running gear more obvious.

In 1937 TIBB designed a Bo'Bo'-de (diesel-electric) locomotive of 550 hp weighing 44 tonnes, which, however, never operated in Eritrea due to WW II activities.

Further, a project of sending 11 Italian yard-switchers (Badoni, Ranzi, Greco/Deutz, Zephyr RoadRailer switch locos) to Asmara changing couplers and buffing gear, and re-gauging them to 950 mm was to have been finished by 2018.

Three Drewry Car Co. built diesel shunters are owned by the railway, and were brought to Eritrea by the British after their takeover in 1941.

In addition, one 4-wheel railcar built by Brown Boveri of Switzerland exists out of service in the Asmara shops.

They are now painted in an attractive livery of white with pale blue in a stripe above the windows and at the bottom of the bodywork.

Therefore, two test runs, one in 2006 another one in spring 2010 took place when ISO containers were carried on traditional flat wagons through all the tunnels along the line.

A 74.5-kilometre (46.3 mi) long 600 mm (1 ft 11+5⁄8 in) gauge potash transport railway[17] located between Massawa and Assab.

Production was stopped some years after World War I owing to large-scale supplies mainly from Germany.