Historian John Godwin walks between two abandoned train cars in
Lagos, Nigeria, on Saturday, April 13, 2013. The Nigerian Railway Corp.,
while recently restarting service from Lagos to the northern city of
Kano, still has relics from the past littering the grounds of its
headquarters in Lagos. Historians hope to preserve some of these old
locomotives and train cars for future generations to see. (AP Photo/Jon
Gambrell)
Train horns now sound again across Nigeria's
lush south and the encroaching desert of its north, but the history of
the nation's 100-year-old railroad still sits rusting away.
Old
steam locomotives and railway cars that hold special places in the story
of Nigeria sit in large storage barns at the Nigerian Railway Corp.
headquarters, a huge compound inside the megacity of Lagos.
One
car once carried Queen Elizabeth II during her 1956 visit to Nigeria
when it was still a British colony, historian John Godwin said. Another
nearby transported Nigeria's first and only prime minister, the
assassinated leader Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, through the country's
northeast, Godwin said.
Today, though, much of the legacy of the
railroad continues to rot away, including large locomotives bearing the
names of Nigeria's military rulers, including the feared dictator Sani
Abacha, whose death while in power ushered in a return to democracy for
the nation in 1999.
Some, like Godwin and the historical
preservation society Legacy1995, have made preserving the railroad's
past a priority. Working with the state-run railway company, they have
remodeled a colonial-era building to house a museum. Talks continue
about how to save the other memorabilia and huge train cars and
locomotives hidden in the tall grasses and barns at the railway's
headquarters.
By JON GAMBRELL, Associated Press.
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| An Advert from a 1950s Magazine for the Nigerian Railway Corp | oration |
