On October 28, 1970, work began on the Tazara railway, a line that was to run from Kapiri Mposhi in Zambia to the port of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, and the project was carried out with Chinese loans, equipment and labour. The agreement had been signed in 1967 between the three governments, and surveys had been made in the years before, and the first section was opened in 1973 and the whole line in 1975. It was the largest aid project China had taken on up to that time.
The railway was built for a political as well as an economic reason. Zambia's copper exports had gone out through Rhodesia and Angola, and after the break with the white minority government in Rhodesia and with the Portuguese in Angola the routes were closed, and the country needed a way to the sea that did not pass through a hostile neighbour. The Chinese offer of help was accepted after western governments and the World Bank had declined, and the project also gave China a presence in southern Africa at a time when it had few friends there. The route was long.
The work was hard. The line runs about 1,860 kilometres through mountains, river valleys and bush, and it was built with a large labour force, including several tens of thousands of Chinese workers, who lived in camps along the route, and about 60 of them died during the construction. Bridges, tunnels and stations were built, and the gauge was chosen to match the Zambian network. The project was completed ahead of the expected date.
The line opened in 1975 and was handed over to a joint authority of the two African states, and it carried copper and passengers and other freight, and it became a symbol of Chinese African co-operation, and it is still studied as a case in which aid was delivered in the form of a large piece of infrastructure. Traffic fell in later years as road transport grew, and the line has needed repairs, and new work on it has been discussed. The line still runs.