The train shudders and lunges, jostling Mwepu Miesha from side to side. He shields his eyes from sun and wind with one hand and holds his crutches in the other, staying aboard with balance and luck. Miesha, the victim of a childhood bout with polio, is sitting, along with 20 others, on top of the train. The freight car beneath him, obviously meant for freight, is already filled with people, and even if he could afford a seat in the passenger car, there is no space there either.

“This is Congo,” Miesha said with a shrug. “What can I do?” In large swaths of Congo, a vast country the size of Western Europe, roads are impassable or nonexistent, large riverboats no longer ply the waterways and air travel is prohibitively expensive, leaving many people to rely on an increasingly dangerous railway system long past its prime.

Fresh from its first democratic elections in nearly 50 years and still struggling to emerge from civil war, Congo is trying to get its trains running again. But it has a long way to go. On August 1, a freight train derailed, killing more than 100 people who had been riding on top of, between, and inside the freight cars. And as the trains fall into further disrepair, such accidents become more common.

Built by the Belgians in 1902 to bring minerals like copper to the Atlantic, the once efficient railways have deteriorated to the point that derailments and brake failures are regular occurrences.

“The railway network is large, expensive, underinvested, in a lot of trouble and needs a lot of money to be repaired,” says Arno Hart, a consultant who worked on a feasibility study for the US Trade and Development Agency, intended to advise potential American investors.

Hart and government officials say that restoring the state-owned railway, known by its abbreviation, SNCC, would take at least $600 million. But it is plagued by inefficiencies, experts say, making donors wary.

During an eight-day, 850-km train journey across southeastern Congo, there were two derailments, several dozen delays, one electricity failure and an ever increasing number of people and freight packed into crammed, stinking aisles, compartments, and bathrooms.

The railway employs over 13,000 people, but the last time paychecks were sent out was in May, and that was payment for the spring of 2005. Consequently, many employees do not go to work; bribes are widespread. “Sometimes it’s difficult to resist temptations,” said Agustin, the police chief at the Kamina station, who gave only his first name.

The World Bank has begun a programme to manage the trains in a public-private partnership, but it hinges on a new, and unlikely, transparency from SNCC.

Remi-Henri Kuseyo, the minister of transportation, conceded that the more time passes without change, the more difficult things will become: “Things are deteriorating while we’re waiting, so it’s an emergency.” The best hope, experts say, lies with the industry that gave birth to the trains over a century ago: mining. The industry has fallen on hard times, but the relative peace could bring a comeback.
NYT