Zambia Railways
Zambia Railways (ZR) is one of the two major railroad organizations in Zambia. The other system is the Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority TAZARA that interconnects with the ZR at Kapiri Mposhi and provides a link to the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam. The ZR connects the mines of a copperbelt that reaches into the Katanga province of the Republic of Congo with Kapiri Mposhi and the TAZARA link, the capital Lusaka, and via Victoria Falls to the railroad system of Zimbabwe. Through Zimbabwe the ports in Mozambique (Beira, Maputo) and South Africa can be reached.
The system was largely built during British colonial rule as part of the Cape-Cairo Railway but also to access the mines of Central Africa. The connection to the Benguela railway is currently not operative. The ZR has a length of 846 km mainline, plus 427 km branch lines.