Eritrea, October 21-29 2018

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This year, I decided to once more do a farrail.de tour. Eritrea has been of interest to me for a while, but only now they have received some coal to be able to host photo charters again after a break of a few years.
We saw five steam locomotives in action, mostly Mallets from the Italian colonial past:
440.008, 442.54 - 56 and shunter 202.008
Keep in mind that Eritrea is one of the poorest countries in the world and cut off from supplies, so the state of the rolling stock presents itself accordingly. Also, due to water damage, the Asmara - Massawa line was disrupted at several points. We could not even reach Embatkalla.
However, this is more than compensated for by the friendliness of the people and probably the most spectacular mountain line in Africa. Every day provided amazing experiences and photo opportunities.
I travelled there from Vienna by Emirates Airbus A380 to Dubai and on with flydubai, as featured in the video.
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0:00 start
1:25 Austrian prelude: trains and A380 near Vienna
5:28 Eritrean steam: departing Asmara (capital) station
7:25 going uphill: Embatkalla - Nefasit section
11:40 Nefasit station, Nefasit - Arbaroba section
17:18 Arbaroba - Shegerini section
25:42 Devil's Gate, Shegerini - Asmara section
34:13 sunrise spot
39:25 Asmara depot, 1957-built Krupp diesel and steam
44:07 Dubai metro after sunset
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[@konstantinosvoulkos]

Amazing! Fantastic video!

[@MKTTransportVideos]

What an absolutely fascinating place.

[@FalconXE302]

Absolutely epic video... thank you.

[@tomzorko6589]

Roni, these are absolutely exquisite!! You are amazing

[@giuseppesantangelo1702]

Fantastic video!

[@_dampfwolke]

Bin beeindruckt! Grüße, Matthias

[@tomzorko6589]

What fuel are they using? At what steam pressure?

[@ronik24]

Hi,
They recently received coal from South Africa, before that they did not have coal for years and could not run (despite everyone at the state railway being employed and receiving their meagerly wages).
The engines leak from many nooks and crannies, with some locos the boiler pressure could go up to 16 bar (at least that's what the gauge said) only to be depleted to 4 bar after a few minutes of uphill running. Then it was back to 15 minutes building up pressure again...
Cheers,
Roni

[@tomzorko6589]

@@ronik24 I guess we should be happy to them running at all. Thanks.

[@emdiesel63]

Wich is the Eritreea's track gauge?

[@ronik24]

@@emdiesel63 Hi, 950mm, like many Italian narrow gauge lines. It was an Italian colony 19th century - 1941.