He soon obtained a concession to build a railway connecting Nsanje, on the Shire River (at the southernmost point of the protectorate), to Mangochi, at the southern end of Lake Malawi, via Chiromo and Blantyre.

The irregular river flow in the region — sometimes with large and destructive floods, sometimes with severe droughts — made safe navigation almost impossible, causing this option to be discarded and the continuation of a railway line to Quelimane to be abandoned.

[7] Between 1919 and 1922, Trans-Zambezia Railways, company winner of the tender for the construction of the southern section, concluded the connection between Dondo and Vila de Sena, in front of the city of Nhamayabué (or Mutarara), on the Zambezi River.

[11] In the 1940s, the Portuguese colonial government for Mozambique built a railway branch linking Dona Ana station, in Nhamayabué, to the coal mines of Moatize.

[14] After the signing of the Rome General Peace Accords in 1992, there was an effort to reopen traffic, but devastating floods in 1997 in the valley of the Shire and Ruo rivers destroyed the important Bangula-Chiromo Road-Rail Bridge, connecting the villages of Bangula and Chiromo.

The Bangula-Chiromo bridge was rebuilt in 2003, but the section of the line between Blantyre and Nhamayabué was left behind for being more sinuous and slower, in addition to the low draft and high cargo movement of the port of Beira.

[20] In 2021, the Mozambican government started the rehabilitation of the section connecting Nhamayabué to Marka, with the expectation of having an auxiliary route for the transport of rail cargo from the south of Malawi.