Mulobezi Railway

The first railway had been built in the country in 1904-5 between Livingstone and Kalomo and was connected to Southern Rhodesia via the Victoria Falls Bridge, opened in 1905.

[1] The timber is hard and strong and termite-resistant and found a ready market as railway sleepers, parquet floors and door and window frames in all parts of Britain's Rhodesian colonies (including what is now Zimbabwe).

The timber was dragged to the river by oxen and transported by barge downstream to a point near Livingstone from where it was hauled the few kilometres to the town in wagons running on wooden rails drawn by traction engines modified so that the front wheels ran on the tracks and the large power wheels ran outside them.

[6] According to an early 2012 report, it takes about 2 days for a train to make the 163 km distance from Livingstone to Mulobezi.

[9] The other locomotive Shepherd transported, together with a passenger coach, to the United Kingdom, and a documentary film of that journey was broadcast in 1976 by BBC Television, called Last Train to Mulobezi.