African Entrepreneurship Records

Chapter 836 Traffic Conditions

Currently, there are more than 200,000 kilometers of railways in the United States, which means that East Africa will need to build at least 200,000 kilometers of railways in the future to meet national demand. However, it is impossible for American railways not to grow. In the future, the length of railways will be at least 400,000 kilometers. For such an exaggerated Number Ernst still needs to be carefully considered.

East Africa is nearly twice the size of the United States (at the same time, there is no Alaska in the United States), so doubling the railway is reasonable. However, based on the development path of European and American railways in previous generations, Ernst still had to pay attention.

Of course, the development of such exaggerated railways in the United States is closely related to the current era. First of all, Americans did not expect that the scale of automobiles would be so exaggerated in the future that they would almost become a necessary means of transportation for American families.

Secondly, the construction of the Panama Canal has not yet been completed, so the main mode of transportation on the east and west coasts of the United States must rely on railways. If the sea route has to go around the entire South America, this is just like the Asia-Europe trade before the opening of the Suez Canal, which bypassed the African coast. .

 Speaking of the Suez Canal, Ernst had mixed feelings. Without the Suez Canal, East Africa's economy would definitely have reached a higher level, but without the Suez Canal, East Africa's expansion in southern Africa in the past twenty years would have definitely not been as smooth.

The opening of the Suez Canal reduced the importance of the great powers to Africa. Secondly, it was more convenient for the main route of European immigrants and import and export trade in East Africa to go through the Suez Canal.

Now that the founding of East Africa has been stabilized after the South African War, the great powers cannot change the pattern of southern Africa, so there is no Suez Canal...

Dispelling these complicated thoughts, Ernst said to Andre: "Railway is an important mode of transportation related to national defense, economy, and people's livelihood. It cannot be completely profit-oriented. For example, some railways may lose money when they are opened, but they will be beneficial to the local area. The economic pull of the East African railway is also unimaginable. Generally speaking, railway construction in East Africa must consider many aspects, and even environmental issues, such as the impact on ecology. Of course, we cannot abandon food because of choking. Nowadays, railway construction is still based on the development of national defense, economy, and people's livelihood. host."

Ernst still put national defense first. In fact, the construction of East African railways first put national defense and security first.

At the end of the 18th century, during the Industrial Revolution, the Englishman John Maccadan designed a new road construction method, using gravel to pave the road. The road was elevated in the middle to facilitate drainage, and the road surface was flat and wide. Later, this kind of road was named "Makadan Road" after the designer's surname, which is also the origin of "horse road".

There are very few roads with asphalt pavement in East Africa. Only some cities in the eastern coastal area have construction. After all, the distribution of natural asphalt in the world is extremely uneven, and East Africa has very poor natural endowments in this regard. Of course, as a big country, it is certainly not completely absent. As far as Ernst himself knows, Congo has a lot of tar sand resources. That is, the location of Congo's outlet to the sea basically overlaps with the distribution of oil and gas resources in East Africa.

 Nowadays, East Africa is vigorously promoting the upgrading of roads, especially in some important urban areas, where asphalt roads have been laid.

Changing the topic, Ernst said to Liu Yidwell: "The Ministry of Transportation should also actively cooperate with the railway department, especially highway construction. Railways cannot reach every place. Railways are arteries, and the same is true for highways. Even the role of highways More importantly, it also acts as a capillary that connects cities, villages, railway hubs, etc.”

As for the development of asphalt roads, it took a short time. Around the 1850s, France first used rock asphalt for road pavements. In 1854, a thin-layer asphalt pavement close to the present was built in Paris, which can be called the beginning of hot-paved asphalt pavements.

At that time, the primary purpose of the construction of the Central Railway was to control the southern African region. At that time, the central and southern parts of East Africa were surrounded by hostile forces on three sides. The Central Railway was like an arm extending from the east to firmly control the central and southern territories under the rule of East Africa. As for the central part of the country, Economic development is only a matter of time.

However, this is all the work of the mining sector. Ernst only knows the general area. Development is also a matter of the future. Moreover, at the current industrial level, the world is still dominated by natural asphalt, so East Africa also needs to import it from Europe.

Furthermore, the price of asphalt is not that high. Even if it is better than cement roads, cement roads also have their advantages, and if there are alternatives to anything, the price will not rise too high.

Liu Yidweil said: "As of last year, we completed 20,000 kilometers of road hardening projects in Hesse Province alone, which has greatly improved the traffic conditions in Hesse Province. Although the progress in other areas is relatively slow, compared with before It is also a great progress.” Hesse Province is the first province to promote road hardening, because the local road conditions are at the lower level in East Africa. In this regard, East Africa focuses on optimizing road conditions in rainy areas, such as Hesse Province and the Great Lakes Region. province.

This is easy to understand. The economic conditions of the two places are not all bad in East Africa. They can be ranked in the middle and upper reaches. In addition, the demand is relatively strong, so the progress is fast.

 As for the roads in other areas of the central and eastern regions, because they are located in grassland or plateau areas and the roads were constructed earlier, they can still be maintained for a while.

“As of last year, the total mileage of hardened roads in the country has exceeded 200,000 kilometers, and the progress is relatively fast in the world.” He said.

Ernst nodded and said: "The more highways we develop, the better. The current highway situation in East Africa is far from enough. There is a huge gap between us and Europe and the United States, so highway construction is also accelerating."

“And with the development of the automobile industry in the future, the demand for roads will also increase, even replacing some of the functions of railways. This is one of the important indicators of my country’s industrial innovation and regional development.”

 In the final analysis, it is to promote the development of the automobile industry in East Africa. As the world’s leading “big country” in the automobile industry, the driving experience on most roads in East Africa is not good.

Of course, cars are not fixed on the rails like trains. As long as it is flat ground, they can basically pass, but there will be a lot of bumps.

Just like military vehicles, off-road performance is a very important indicator. At this time, the vast grasslands of East Africa are all "roads", but they are somewhat useless.

In addition to railways and highways, water transportation is also an important transportation component in East Africa. However, the water transportation conditions in East Africa are poor, so there is nothing to say. At present, land transportation construction is still the main focus.

Of course, water transportation conditions are poor nationally, but this is not the case regionally, especially with the many large lakes in East Africa. Six of the world's largest lakes within 50 miles are located in East Africa, and three of them are among the top ten in the world. The Great Lake (Lake Victoria) ranks third in the world, second only to the Caspian Sea and Lake Superior.

Moreover, the three largest lakes in East Africa are concentrated in the eastern region, which makes the lake transportation industry in East Africa relatively developed and growing very fast.

These lakes are also important sources of fishery resources in East Africa, which means that even in the interior of East Africa, freshwater fishery resources are no worse than in coastal areas.

The only drawback is that these lakes are relatively independent and are not interconnected like the five Great Lakes. However, this is also conducive to the dispersion of water resources.

In addition, the large plateau lakes mainly impose certain restrictions on the territory of East Africa. For example, the existence of Malawi and Lake Tanganyika makes Mbeya the only passage in the middle.

The same will be true in the future. Lakes Malawihu and Tanganyika are often hundreds of meters deep and large in area. They do not have the conditions for bridge construction. In the future, transportation on the east and west sides will definitely be dominated by ferries.

 (End of this chapter)