DanMacK wrote:country: Cameroon
railway co.: Camrail
line: Central Line?
gauge: metre Gauge
type: BB 1100?
builder: Alsthom/MTE
location: Yaounde
Yeah, this shows me that you found that single Cameroon Railways page on the net. Seems that all that african stuff gets too easy meanwhile ...
Good one Michael. This loco looks something like a beat up Alco C415 crossed with a GE heavy centrecab. It's neither though
Correct, this is a BB diesel-electric jointly built by Alsthom and the former "Société MTE", which at that time was a subsidy of Jeumont-Schneider and Creusot-Loire, and was later incorporated into Alsthom.
Just some more information about Cameroon´s Railways:
Until WWI, (parts of) Cameroon had been a German colony, named "Kamerun". The Germans built a couple of meter-gauge railways, namely
- the 160km long Manengu- or Northern Railway, financed and built by the "Kamerun-Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft" (see attachment) between 1906 and 1911, connecting Duala with the Manengu Mountains at Nkongsamba,
- the "Central Railway" ("Mittellandbahn"), connecting Duala with Njone, some 280km building beginning in 1908 and reaching Bidjoka, km 150, in december 1913, later reaching Yaoundé (Jaunde, see attachment).
Nevertheless, the oldest railway in Kamerun was a plantation railway for the "Westafrikanische Pflanzungsgesellschaft Victoria" (WAPV) on the southern slopes of Mount Cameroon. Of this railway, there´s still one small steamer in existence at Tiko, the "Governor Ebermaier", a 10 tonnes, 0-8-0 Orenstein & Koppel, built in 1914 (build no. 7720):
http://www.gouverneur-ebermaier.de/fotos.htm
Good work, Dan. Your turn again.
regards
Michael