Moroccan Railways

[trisonic]

Anyone visited and have photos of the railways of Morocco? Particularly Tangier to Fez where a high speed line is under consideration?

 

I’ve seen one interesting shot of a modern“double decker” carriage too.

 

I travelled from Tangier to the Atlas Mountains in 1965 with the school - I don’t recall seeing any railways...

 

Thanks, Pete.

[trisonic]

Here’s a route map of railways in Morocco

 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Railways_Morocco.png

 

I seem to have made a mistake offer the high speed proposal. The original proposal is from Tangier to Casablanca via Rabat.

 

Thanks, Pete.

[Fat Controller]

There've been a couple of articles about Moroccan Railways over the years in 'Rail Passion', the SNCF-owned magazine, with some cracking photos. From these, I've noticed that a lot (if not all) of the locos are ex-SNCF types, or are built to the same designs. The ones I've seen illustrated have include CC72000 diesels, as well as various electrics. Here's a link to ONCF's official web-site:-

http://www.oncf.ma/Pages/Accueil.aspx

I've not travelled on them, as our one trip to Morocco was via a flight into and out of Marrakesh, thence into the hills. It's a country I'd like to visit again, though next time, I'll not eat any salad..

[Allegheny1600]

Hi Pete,

From the Winter of 1971 until 1980 (aged 6 - 15), I spent every winter but one in Morocco!

Needless to say, I was with my parents and my dad drove us from the Spanish port of Ceuta down through Tetouan and Meknes and we usually bore over towards the Atlas mountains where my dad would trade with the locals, old clothing from "jumble sales" (prior to charity shops?) swapped for ameythist and agate stones. I remember my dad 'selling' these says "Look, quality, Empire Made"!!!

Then we would head into Marrakesh and he would do the same for copper kettles! All the items would then be hauled waaay back to the tourist shops of Derbyshire (mostly Matlock Bath) and sold on, he must have made enough profit!

We would then head down past Agadir to a nature reserve called Massa where we would spend most of out time but we did get down to Sidi Ifni, Tan-Tan and other places deep in the Sahara desert!

Sometimes we would go down the coastal route through Rabat, Casablanca and Essaouira - this was where I found two 10 Dirham notes floating in a puddle, bought a copper kettle of my own and back home traded it for two Tri-ang "American" locos!

Anyway, to railways proper!

Sometimes the railway ran alongside our route and I would get exited to see a train, they were always very colourful, more so than most European ones and way more colourful than British ones*. My mum took a couple of 'snaps' for me and I do still have these somewhere but they're not very good.

The railways terminated in Marrakesh and maybe Essaouira had a branch but that was as far south as their railways got then. A good local friend in Massa did tell me there were plans to extend the railway down to Agadir, at least but as far as I know, this has never happened. I do remember eletric railways around Rabat and Casablanca but mostly the railways used diesels, either French built (copies of the CC72000) or EMD built.

I was very surprised to read in "Railway Gazette International" the plans for high speed lines, more news here: http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/high-speed/single-view/view/africas-first-high-speed-train-delivered.html?sword_list[]=Morocco&no_cache=1

For decent photos and some details I've looked on "Railfan Europe" under "other pictures", see "MA": http://www.railfaneurope.net/pix_frameset.html

 

Hope that helps!

John.

 

*During the period 1971-1980 you can understand why I consider British Railways to be the dullest railway on the planet if you ever saw a Moroccan diesel loco! They were lovely, bright and colourful with magnificent sounds too. All in brilliant sunshine as well.

[Clay Country]

There's a lot going on on the Moroccan network at the moment. Construction of the high-speed line from Tangiers to Kenitra is at a fairly advanced stage and the first TGV Duplex for the high-speed line is undergoing tests on the conventional network. The line from Kenitra to Rabat and Casablanca is being upgraded in preparation for the introduction of TGV services and the line south of Casablanca to Marrakech is being doubled. There's still a lot of interest on the traction front with ex SNCF 72000 diesels and 36000 electrics, which are leased from SNCF for freight use, as well as EMUs from Belgium and Italy.

 

There are some excellent images on this website: https://bahnbilder.ch/search?action=search&author=&license=&datefrom=&dateto=&type=&country=26&location=&operator=&vclass=&description=&sortby=picturedate

[Allegheny1600]

My Goodness!

There IS a lot going on over there! I can't believe they're running Prima 2's! Oh! For the UIC loading gauge! (so we could have such machines!).

I'm guessing King Mohammed (V) is quite keen on the railways - seeing as how much money is being spent on them?!

[Allegheny1600]

 

*During the period 1971-1980 you can understand why I consider British Railways to be the dullest railway on the planet if you ever saw a Moroccan diesel loco! They were lovely, bright and colourful with magnificent sounds too. All in brilliant sunshine as well.

See what I mean?

https://bahnbilder.ch/picture/10012

This is how I remember Moroccan railways, pleasing to see these machines still running, still brightly painted although this is a different scheme to what I remember.

Many thanks for this link, Keith B.

[Neils WRX]

Been once back in 2004.

 

Had a good few days although they weren't very keen on photography.... And we did get followed about by plain clothes Police / Security. It was all good humoured though!!!

 

Here's a link to a few pictures https://flickr.com/photos/52825810@N08/sets/72157664115225484

[trisonic]

Fascinating country. When we were in Tangier the Rolling Stones were there (it was one of their R&R bolt holes). The railways look very interesting as is the history of the whole place.

 

Thanks very much, guys.

 

Best, Pete.

[Alex Duckworth]

I travelled from Marrakesh to Fez on the train in about 2006, if I remember correctly it took about seven hours. I made sure that I had Crosby, Stills and Nash on my iPod and sang along happily to "Marrakesh Express", luckily I was in first class and my wife and I had a compartment to ourselves. Morocco is one of my favourite holiday destinations, Essouira is particularly interesting and is a center for some great music.

 

Alex.

[hmrspaul]

_{I've not been on the Moroccan trains, but we were in Marrakesh when CSN had that tune at number one, travelling on 2nd hand buses with the hens tied together and dying on the roof and goat shxt down the windows. [We also didn't know that man had walked on the moon but thats another story]}

 

_{Anyway, we did see  one train to photograph when we did a 2000mile tour in our motorcaravan in 1981. These are the results}

 

 

 

 

 

 

_{A lovely heavy mixed freight train.}

 

_Paul

 

 

[Allegheny1600]

Hi Paul,

Smashing photos!

So, you did the campervan thing too, great, eh!?! I'm guessing that by May it was getting "warm"!

Did you get all the kids surrounding the van at every stop, begging for sweets, cigarettes, Dirhams etc? Even four or five year olds, funny.

Cheers,

John

[hmrspaul]

Hi Paul,

Smashing photos!

So, you did the campervan thing too, great, eh!?! I'm guessing that by May it was getting "warm"!

Did you get all the kids surrounding the van at every stop, begging for sweets, cigarettes, Dirhams etc? Even four or five year olds, funny.

Cheers,

John

Couldn't have done all the wagon photography without motorcaravans. Our little wagon measuring group could be a rally on our own!

 

Morocco Oh yes. In the middle of nowhere somewhere on the edge of the Sahara beyond Merzouga the moment you stop the kids appear from nowhere. But not so bad as the hash sellers trying to force us off the road on the near the Med coast road from Tetouan to El Hoceima.

 

And then there is making the mistake of trying to drive into Marakesh and getting mixed up in the bazaar!

 

I don't remember where the photos were taken, but possibly to the east of Fes.

 

Paul

[D9502]

Hello,

I visited Morocco in December 2013 and December 2014 and traveled around by train.

Here's a selection of photos from the December 2103 trip which took us from Tangier to Fez, Fez to Rabat and Rabat to Marrakesh.The December 2014 trip we only traveled from Casablanca to Meknes by train the rest was by coach.

 

The first photos are at Tangier station. 

First is DF Class DF105. 

The green locomotive I think was the station pilot, it looks like a US Switcher, its DI 504. Behind the switcher was electric E1300 Class.

 

when I've figured out how to embedded the photos with captions I'll add some more!

regards

 

 

[D9502]

Hello again, 

 

The Morrocan state railway system is fantastic, its a standard gauge network with electrified lines between major cities and thats expanding. The motive power is a mix of European,  American and Japanese. The coaching stock reminded me of SNCF whilst the frieght stock I saw was either ballast hoppers in 'Network Rail' yellow, cement wagons and I saw one container train. 

 

The trains were very punctual, the ride very smooth and when the staff saw us take a strange interest in the motive power they were very friendly.

 

The following ballast wagons were taken between Tangier and Fez. Unfortunately I haven't labelled all my photos, so apologies, I'm not really into photography.