Many were taken by surprise during the fifth edition of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD V) which took place recently at the port city of Yokohama, Japan to learn that rail transport is cheaper and easy to run than road transport. President Yoweri Kaguta Moseveni of Uganda was confident of what he said in his presentation in one of the commissions. The greatest challenge for African countries is to lower cost and maximise profit. Road infrastructure is more costly than maritime and rail transport, he said.

The logic of this assertion is everyone’s guess but what is perhaps important to note is that even though all means of transport demand maintenance, the regularity with which road transport has to be maintained is what makes it peculiar. The road network is much more dense, varied and complicated to handle. It is because of this complexity that government is obliged to budget on an annual basis, huge sums in a bid to ensure fluidity in the sector. And as nature would have it, it is often difficult to maintain all that demands repairs.

Time, which in itself is a powerful resource, has come and Cameroon is realising what it would have gained if it had initially concentrated its transport investment on rail transport. The National Railway Master Plan epitomises government’s ambition to boost the country’s transport sector. In effect, the implementation of this plan is expected to inject into the sector serious changes and accelerate socio-economic activities in the country, but one thing remains clear; the country is making up for time lost. The general belief that rail transport is good only for goods is gone past. In fact, many nations including the  most developed ones have tailored their land transport investment on rail transport.

Now that the wind is blowing towards the direction of rail transport all measures ought to be taken to overcome the challenges of modernity. Fortunately, the Cameroon Railway Company (CAMRAIL) has taken the first step by ordering 50 new modern passenger wagons  and over ten railcars from China’s CSR Nanjing Puzhen Rolling Stock Co. Ltd. This entails an end to low quality wagons as was known years back where people, goods and animals travelled together in the same wagons.

An efficient rail transport between the two major cities of Yaounde and Douala calls for a sigh of relieve. Transport by railway in effect, is safer and will be very much welcome to shuttle between Yaounde and Douala taking into consideration the numerous road accidents that occur on this highway. In the same vein, instituting rail urban transport within the two main cities will ease things for the inhabitants and even help decongest present traffic go slow caused by lack of roads and poor driving.