Mauritania Railway

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Mauritania Railway train at the station in Nouadhibou
Mauritania Railway train at the station in Nouadhibou

The Mauritania Railway consists of a single, 704 km railway line linking the iron mining centre of Zouerate with the port of Nouadhibou, via Fderik and Choum. The state agency Société Nationale Industrielle et Minière (SNIM) controls the railway line.

Trains on the railway are up to 2.5 km in length, according to the SNIM web site, making them among the longest and heaviest in the world. They consist of 3 or 4 diesel-electric General Motors 3300HP locomotives, 200 to 210 cars each carrying up to 84 tons of iron ore, and a variable number of service cars. The total traffic averages 16.6 billion tons per year.

Travelers' cars are also occasionally transported by train; these services are managed by an SNIM subsidiary, the ATTM Society (Société d'assainissement, de travaux, de transport et de maintenance). Passenger cars are sometimes attached, but more often passengers simply ride atop the ore cars.

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