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Diesel Locomotives
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Diesel Locomotives

This picture was taken from the "White Apartments" in Asmara.  It is a fragment of the original picture.  I have long since lost the negative.

The station is to the left.  Behind the camera is the main downtown street of Asmara.  It was Haile Selassie Boulevard in my era.  In Jerry Pry's era, it was Corso Italia.  Today, it is Independence Blvd. On Jerry Pry's map, the camera is in the block south of 9 and pointed due East.  The hills in the background today are part of the National Martyrs Park

It is the only picture I have of the Eritrean diesels in operation from my era.  This is one of the Krupp built diesels from 1957.  According to the data I have from Jane's World Railways, this is one of eight diesel hydraulic locomotives the railway had in 1962.



 

Krupp

TIBB

Drewry

There are a few pictures about of the diesels being rebuilt and there is a picture on an Eritrean stamp.
 
 

Mike Cunningham shows the current roster in his article in Issue 43 of Locomotives International that most of the current diesel units come from the '30s.  He shows a total of 5 locomotives have survived.
Four diesels survived the war and two were in servicable condition.  An expatriate told me that much of the key parts of the system were moved to Ethiopia upon dismantling in 1976.  If this was true, then it is likely that the four remaining locomotives are still in Ethiopia.
 

Also, in Eritrea 1941, small Sudanese locomotives were regauged from their 42 inch gauge to the 950 mm gauge. This may have been the source of the Drewry locomotives.

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