Reference Sources for Malawi Railways

THE BRITISH OVERSEAS RAILWAYS HISTORICAL TRUST

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Reference Sources for Malawi Railways

This page is to assist in research on Malawi Railways. Please also reference our Nigerian page for further ideas. BORHT also has some Malawi Railways material in our archives.

Firstly, a word of warning, there has been a spate in recent years of people finding books that are out of copyright, OCR’ing them and offering the copies for sale. Admittedly they do warn that the copies may not be perfect. The Trust brought a copy of a French book on African Colonial Railways that is extremely rare but found that no more than 25% of the pages were legible.

Malawi has no overall detailed history of its railways.

On this page, the term Malawi Railways as an overarching cover for the current Malawi Railways, and its various constituents, which include The Shire Highlands Railways, Central African Railway, TransZambesia Railway and Nyasaland Railways. Given the close interrelationship with Mozambique appropriate references for there are also included.

Some of the titles below are available in the British Library and can be found by searching their catalogue.

Journal articles listed should be available through JSTOR or appropriate online sources.

The Southern African Archive at the University of York contains a large amount of material about the railways.

In producing these research files use has been made of the following reference source: TRANSPORT RESEARCH BIBLIOGRAPHY, Gordon Pirie, African Centre for Cities University of Cape Town December 2018, however much additional material has been added.

Some photos are courtesy of Alon Siton's Historical Railway Images.

Malawi Railway Specific Books and Articles

Author	Title	Date	Publisher	Town	Remarks
Anon	East Africa railways Malawi Nacala	1968	La Vie du Rail Outre-mer no. 167
Anon	Malawi railways	1967	La Vie du Rail Outre-mer 1967 156
Anon	Nyasaland	1920	The Foreign and Colonial Office	London
Anon	Railway notes	1902	Scottish Geographical Magazine Vol. XVIII (1902), p. 163
Bamford, Mike	The search for Katunga: "Blantyre's port"	2009	The Society of Malawi Journal, 2009, Vol. 62, No. 1 (2009), pp. 37-5
Bell, Donald	Malawi and Trans-Zambesia Railways.	1976	Continental Railway Journal (25), 368-75
Bell, R.D.	Report of the Commission appointed to enquire into the Financial Position and Further Development of Nyasaland	1938	Colonial Office	London
Boeder, R.B.	Sir Alfred Sharpe and early railway development in Malawi.	1980	Society of Malawi Journal, 33, 43-50
Capenny, S. H.	Railway Schemes in relation to British central Africa	1901	Scottish Geographical Magazine, 17(7), 363-377
Chilundo, Arlindo Gonçalo	The Economic and Social Impact of Rail and Road Transportation Systems in the Colonial District of Mozambique (1900-1961)	1995	PhD, University of Minnesota
Crosby, Cynthia Ann	A History of the Nyasaland Railway, 1895-1935: a Study in Colonial Economic Development.	1974	PhD, Syracuse University
Crosby, Cynthia Ann	Railway development in Malawi: the early years, 1895-1915	1976	In From Nyasaland to Malawi: Studies in Colonial History, edited by R. J. MacDonald, pp. 124-143. East African Publishing House	Nairobi
DIXEY, Frank, K.C.M.G, and Charles Barron Bisset	The Water Supply Conditions of the Country. traversed by the proposed Railway Extension from Blantyre to Lake Nyasa	1929	GEOLOGICAL SURVEY	Zomba
Fenwick, Hugh	Malawi Enterprise: Building a Railway in Africa	2014	Published by Advanced Rail Technologies	York
Fox, Sir Douglas; Metcalfe, Sir Charles T., Bart	Report on the Survey through the Shire Highlands	1899	Fox and Metcalfe, Consulting Engineers	London
Gamlen, G.L.	Transport on the River Shire, Nyasaland	1935	The Geographical Journal , Nov., 1935, Vol. 86, No. 5 (Nov., 1935), pp. 449-455
Hammond, Fredrick Dawson, Brig-Gen, Newcombe, E. O. A.; Carter, E. P.	Report on the Nyasaland railways and proposed Zambesi bridge, 1927	1929	The Colonial Office	London
Hawken, A.J.	The Airmail History of Nyasaland	1980	The Society of Malawi Journal , July, 1980, Vol. 33, No. 2 (July, 1980), pp. 25-32
Katzenellenbogen, Simon Ellis	South Africa and Southern Mozambique: Labour, Railways and Trade in the Making of a Relationship:	1982	Manchester University Press
Leishman, A.D.H.	The steam era in Malawi	1974	Society of Malawi Journal, 27, 46-53
MacGregor-Hutcheson	New Developments in Malawi's Rail and Lake Services	1969	The Society of Malawi Journal, Vol. 22, No. 1, pp. 32-4
Macrone, Grieve	Railway Survey Work in the Shire Highlands of British Central Africa	1898	Proceedings of the Philosophical Society of Glasgow, 97-122
Mandala, E	Feeding and Fleecing the Native: How the Nyasaland Transport System Distorted a New Food Market, 1890s-1920s	2006	The Journal of Southern African Studies, Volume 32, No 3, p. 512
McCracken, John	Labour in Nyasaland: an assessment of the 1960 railway workers' strike.	1988	Journal of Southern African Studies, 14 (2), 279- 290
McCraken, J	A History of Malawi, 1859-1966	2012	James Currey	Woodbridge
Meik, Vivien	Zambezi Interlude	1932	Philip Allan	London
Morgan, W B	Factors in the Development of Central Africa, A Study of the Lower Shire River and adjacent Highlands	1953	PhD, Glasgow University, 1953
Morris, Brian	An environmental history of Southern Malawi : land and people of the Shire Highlands	2016	Springer Science+Business Media	New York
Nkana, Robert	Malawi Railways: an Historical Review.	1999	The Society of Malawi Journal Vol. 52, No. 1 (1999), pp. 39-45		Nkana was G.M. of Malawi railways
Pachai, B.	Malawi, The History of the Nation	1973	(1st ed.). Longman	London
Perry, J	The growth of the transport network of Malawi	1969	The Society of Malawi Journal, 1969 Vol. 22, No. 2, p. 32
Perry, J.W.B	Malawi's New Outlet to the Sea.	1971	Geography Vol. 56, No. 2 (April 1971), pp. 138-140
Rankin, D.J.	The Chinde River and Zambesi Delta	1901	Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society
Rankin, D.J.	The Zambesi Delta and Nyasaland	1893	William Blackwood & Sons	Edinburgh
Rees, J.D.	Nyasaland and the Shiré Highlands Railway	1986	Society of Malawi	Zomba	Reprint of 1906 original
Richardson, Ralph	The railways of Africa	1906	Scottish Geographical Magazine, 22:12, 621-636
Smith, Jose A	The Beira corridor project	1988	Geography, 73, 258-261
Stevens, H.W. (Jim)	The Construction of the Shire Highlands Railway 1903 – 1907		Society of Malawi Journal		Stevens was a former G.M. of Nyasaland Railways
Teixeira, L.P.	The Development of the Railway System of Mozambique	1991	MA, Concordia University, Montreal
Vail, Leroy	Railway development and colonial underdevelopment: the Nyasaland case	1977	In The Roots of Rural Poverty in Central and Southern Africa, edited by Robin Palmer and Neil Parsons, pp. 365-395 University of California Press	Berkeley
Vail, Leroy	The making of an imperial slum: Nyasaland and its railways, 1895-1935	1975	Journal of African History, 16 (1), 89-112
Woods, Tony	'Bread with freedom and peace': rail workers in Malawi, 1954-1974	1992	Journal of Southern African Studies, 18 (4), 727-738

Books or Journal Articles on African Railways that will Mention Malawi

Nyasaland Shire Highlands Railway 7-10 (Hunslet) Limbe

Author	Title	Date	Publisher	Town	Remarks
Anon	Notes on railway construction.	1912/13	Journal of the Royal African Society, 12 (47), 290-295
Anon	Railways and harbours in tropical Africa	1941	Royal Engineers Journal, 55, 341-349.		This article contains the only detailed account of the Royal Engineers building the Baro-Kano railway seen
Baltzer, Franz	Die Kolonialbahnen mit besonderer Berücksichtigung Afrikas [The Colonial Railways with particular reference to Africa]	1916	Berlin, Leipzig, Göschen: (Reprint: Leipzig 2007: Holzminden Reprint-Verl.). ISBN 9783826202339.	Berlin	(in German)
Carter, Reg	Kitson Works List	1997	Private.	Kingston-upon-Thames
Darwin, Major	Railways in Africa	1896	Geographical Journal 8: p488-501	London
de Renty, Ernest Amédée	Les Chemins de Fer Coloniaux en Afrique	1903	De Rudeval	Paris	Pt 1 is German, Italian and Portuguese Colonies, Pt 2 the British Colonies and Pt 3 the French Colonies
Due, John F	The Problems of Rail Transport in Tropical Africa	1979	The Journal of Developing Areas Vol. 13, No. 4 (Jul., 1979), pp. 375-393 Published by: College of Business, Tennessee State University	Nashville
Durrant, A.E., A.A. Jorgensen, C.P. Lewis	Steam in Africa	1981	Hamlyn	London
Metcalfe, Charles	Railway Development of Africa, Present and Future	1916	The Geographical Journal Vol. 47, No. 1 (Jan., 1916), pp. 3-17 Published by: The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)	London
Orr, C.W.J.	Light Railways for Tropical Africa	1911	Journal of the Royal African Society Vol. 10, No. 38 (Jan., 1911), pp. 179-190 Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Royal African Society	Oxford
Palterman Jonathan	African Railway Album, Vol 1	2006
Talbot, E	Steam from Kenya to the Cape	1975	Continental Railway Circle	Stafford
Weinthal, Leo	The Story of the Cape to Cairo Railway and River Route, from 1887 to 1922	1924	The Pioneer Publishing Co. Ltd.	London	There are 4 volumes and a map set in total
Wiener, Lionel	Les Chemins de fer coloniaux de l'Afrique	1930	Goemaere	Brussels

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