For almost 100 years - from the last 10 years of the nineteenth 100 years to the last part of the 1970s, trains had a significant influence on this nation's political, social, monetary, and, surprisingly, social life.
Ghana's rail tracks prompted spots where the British colonialists found the endeavour generally beneficial and valuable for moving unrefined components. This should be visible in the rail route triangle that was natural to each schoolchild of that time.
Simple to draw and make sense of, the rail line lines are framed A-shape with the pinnacle at Kumasi and the two feet addressing Accra in the East and Secondi-Takoradi in the West. Practically like an ideal A, it even had a short line associating the two legs as the Tarkwa - Huni Valley line.
That rail lines supported the country's frontier economy was no "book matter"; it was there so anyone might see for themselves. Trains conveyed wood, bauxite, manganese, cocoa, and a wide range of crude wares from the hinterlands to the Takoradi Harbor; they additionally shipped merchants, government workers, understudies, and various classes of travellers whose developments added to the country's turn of events.
Tragically, no trains have run on the majority of these tracks for the beyond 35 years or something like that. Most Ghanaians younger than 45 have likely never seen a train, not to mention travelled in one.
In numerous ways, the breakdown of Ghana's rail area is an immediate impression of the descending direction of the country's financial fortunes during the 1970s and mid-1980s. Step by step, however persistently the help headed towards an ignoble end; train stocks couldn't be supplanted, parts must be torn apart to fix different trains until individually, the tracks became quiet beautifications on the ground.
What the greater part of us may not know about is that, once more, step by step however ideally, our rail lines will convey moving stock in the future. This is the issue that took me to the workplace of Mr Yaw Owusu, the CEO of the Ghana Railway Development Authority, GRDA. The CEO is a man on a mission and his undeniable affection for the railroad venture would have tainted me regardless of whether I had been a pessimist.
I was curious as to whether it was the case that trains would be running any time soon following after us. He took out certain graphs, similar to any great CEO would, and showed me the design of the new rail routes vision of the country.
The ongoing rail tracks are an aggregate of 1000 kilometres yet the new arrangement includes multiple times that length the nation over.
His hopeful examination as illustrated in the designs to restore rail routes as a central part mirrors the reasoning of President Nana Akufo-Addo who has portrayed permitting the railroad area to fall as an "essential blunder".
The President, while examining the Railway Training School at Ketan a long time back, uncovered that it had been his arrangement since he accepted office "to do whatever might be required to resuscitate the area", as indicated by a Citi news report.
The GRDA has aggressive plans. "We intend to assemble somewhere in the range of 3840 kilometres of new tracks for the rail network from now on", Mr Owusu made sense of, adding that every one of the tracks will be standard check rather than the restricted measure which has existed since the coming of rail travel in the country. At the point when the whole organization becomes functional, each of the 16 local capitals in Ghana will be connected by railroads.
Rather than the triangle we know about, the new organization will spread the nation over in three primary developments. The Western line is the Takoradi-Kumasi line, and the Eastern line is the Kumasi-Accra line however there are new stages and branches added to these current courses relying upon the requirement for such options. For instance, the Eastern line diversions to Kyebi due to the bauxite nearby.
Mr Yaw Owusu, CEO, Ghana Railway Development Authority
The new expansion is the Eastern Extension Line which runs from Tema through Mpakadan across the Volta River. Whenever it is finished, it will go through Hohoe to Yendi, and Tamale to Paga on the boundary with Burkina Faso.
That is some vision! Be that as it may, I needed to know the amount of this was genuine instead of something existing ready to go. Rail route development doesn't come modest.
It costs around 5,000,000 US dollars to build one kilometre of rail track and that incorporates spans, channels, courses, and any remaining foundation supporting the rail tracks and the matter of running railroads in the country.
I was dazzled that given the limitations in which the worldwide economy finds itself, our rail area has consistently however unobtrusively pushed forward with a splendid reason but since the monetary overlay is expected to finish the entire arrangement, it is being executed in bits as per public needs.
The western line will ultimately run from Takoradi Port through Huni Valley to Kumasi using Obuasi. A branch is proposed to interface the bauxite-creating areas of Awaso and Nyinahin to the Takoradi Port. As indicated by the GRDA, the conveyance of that line will speed up the Integrated Aluminum Industry Project. Right now, the accentuation is on the Takoradi Port-Manso segment, which incorporates the mineral-rich Tarkwa-Nsuta region.
Up to this point, work on that segment is practically finished, without a doubt that line is as yet dynamic on the old restricted check tracks yet the heaps are little a result of low pivot limit. The new norms measure framework will address that lack.
The Eastern Line Accra/Tema Port through Nsawam and Koforidua to Kumasi. Right now, the Accra/Tema Port-AdjinKotoku-Nsawam with a branch course to Kasoa is under agreement with continuous development works. This course will work on the transportation of merchandise and travellers in the Nsawam-Accra-Tema pivot and the straightforwardness of traffic in the vigorously populated area.
Notwithstanding, the third proposed course is the Eastern Extension Line of which the Tema - Mpakadan segment of the course is practically finished and expected to be dispatched and operationalised at some point this year. Exchanges have progressed for trains to be imported to run on the finished segments this year.
President Akufo-Addo reviews new chips away at railways
On paper, one can see the plans and the effect they will make when they are carried out. To be sure, as indicated by Mr Owusu, the entire of this parcel is just the start.
There is the trans-Africa rail network thought of which our public area will shape a section. The public authority has plans for monorail and different sorts of train administrations for between and intra-city transportation. Those are from now on and we need to begin someplace.
Up to this point, about two billion US dollars have gone into the railroad's foundation and significantly more is required. Notwithstanding, I have saved the peruser the more many-sided monetary and specialized insights concerning how the brilliantly hued diagrams and arrangements are being carried out because I suspect that, similar to me, you will likewise accept it when you see it. This is the reason before very long I have chosen to travel and see, as the two engraving says.
Remain tuned and watch this space. The train most likely is coming.
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