From customer service to engineering to driving techniques, Chinese railway personnel have been busy working with their counterparts in Ethiopia ahead of the launch of a Chinese-built electric railway that is hoped to transform the transport networks of the landlocked African country from Wednesday.

More than 2,000 local staff have received training, working closely with their Chinese colleagues in preparation for working on the Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway, the first electrified railway built by a Chinese company abroad.

Linking Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa and the neighboring country of Djibouti, a major transit point for the Red Sea, the line is over 750 km long and will carry both passenger trains and freight. It has taken over six years to build and cost 400 million US dollars, mostly funded by China.

The line cuts travel time from Addis Ababa to seaports on the Gulf of Aden from two days to less than 10 hours. Passenger trains will speed along it at up to 120 kilometers per hour, with a capacity for 1,100 passengers on each run.

.

Although this is in fact the second China-built railway in Africa, after the Tanzania-Zambia railroad completed in 1976, it is an example of the support China has been providing to the continent in recent years of funding and building travel infrastructure.