Italian colonial railways

The construction of railways in the African Italian colonies (Eritrea, Libya and Somalia) did not have, for various reasons, a great development compared to that promoted by other European countries on the same continent.

[1] The first rail lines were built mainly for war needs in the absence of efficient means of communication in the occupied territories, after the conquests of Eritrea and Libya.

In 1940 the amount of railways in operation, between Italian East Africa and Libya, amounted to 1,556 km of which, however, the 693 km of the Italian section of the Railway Djibouti-Addis Ababa were pre-existing and built by the French Empire for Ethiopia.

Today most of these Italian colonial railways have disappeared: those of Somalia after the British occupation in 1941–1945.

The Libyan ones were suppressed in the 1960s, but in the same decade the Eritrean railway between Italian Asmara and Massawa was reactivated after long neglect of trafficking.

The original Massawa(Mitsiwa'e)-Asmara-Bishia Railway in Italian Eritrea, active between 1887 and 1941
Railways -in red color- in 1940 Italian Libya
Italian Somalia's railway
Map showing the Ethio-Djibouti railway
Eritrean railway, that now connects only Massawa and Asmara, showing an Italian "class 440 locomotive" at work on the mountainous section between Arbaroba and Asmar
The Italian empire before WWII is shown in red. Pink areas were annexed/occupied for various periods between 1940 and 1943. Italian concessions and forts in China are not shown.