The Tanzania-Zambia Railway, completed in the 1970s with aid from China, has since been considered an icon of China-Africa friendship. Since its completion, the 1,860-kilometer railway has served as a crucial artery linking East, Central and South Africa. Due to its important role throughout recent history, many Africans call it the "road of freedom." After 35 years of operation, however, how does the railway look today, and where will it go in the future? With those concerns in mind, I took a tour of the railway this August.

The railway starts from Dar es Salaam in the east. As the capital of Tanzania, Dar es Salaam literally means "harbor of peace" in Swahili. During the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), Chinese navigator Zheng He reached the port with his fleet. When the Dar es Salaam Railway Station crept over the horizon, I felt whisked back to 1970s China due to the distinct architectural flavors of the time.

The railway station consists of two floors, with the first used for ticket sales and cargo transport. Next to the ticket office hangs a bulletin board with important information, such as names of the 53 stations along the railway and various ticket prices. When I arrived, only a few people were lining up to buy tickets. Such a scene starkly contrasts China’s train stations, which seem perpetually packed. The second floor is the waiting hall.

Because passenger trains only operate on Tuesday and Friday, the spacious waiting hall was nearly empty during my Thursday visit. On the wall in the middle of the hall hung a bird’s-eye map of the Tanzania-Zambia Railway that noted the mountains, valleys, forests, grasslands, marshes and lakes that it traverses. On two columns facing the map were portraits of former Tanzanian President Julius K. Nyerere and former Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda, who were "old friends of China" during the Mao era. In that period, the railway linked the three countries ― China, Tanzania and Zambia.