In Nigeria, a dying railroad clatters back to life

AP

4 April 2011

In Nigeria, a dying railroad clatters back to life

LAGOS, Nigeria – A stifling heat sat over the train car waiting at the Lagos terminal, its aisles a bazaar. Railroad employees hustled mobile phone recharge cards, women carried sweating bottles of soda atop their heads, and a man thrust packets of poison into passengers' faces, shouting: "Kill stubborn rat!"

Two minutes past its departure time, the new green-and-yellow locomotive at the front sounded its horn three times, bringing passengers sprinting across the aging concrete concourse to pile in as it pulled away. It passed an open-air market, with women's bras fluttering just past the train's open windows, then a bevy of idling cars stuck along a Lagos expressway.

This is the beginning of what could be the rebirth of rail in Nigeria. Officials hope a $166 million plan will open the line from Lagos to the banks of Niger River, then later all the way to the ancient northern city of Kano.