The Mpanda Branch, Tabora to Mpanda

The Mpanda branch is the railway into Tanzania's far west. It leaves the Central Line at Kaliua, west of Tabora, and runs 210 kilometres south through miombo woodland and across the Ugalla River to Mpanda, the capital of Katavi Region. It opened in 1949.

TRC runs its own train on it, the Ordinary from Mpanda, with sleeping compartments, third-class seats and a restaurant car. It takes about fourteen hours between Mpanda and Tabora, a full day from early morning to night, and tickets are also sold through to Dodoma, the capital, where the SGR continues to Dar es Salaam.

At the far end is Katavi National Park, one of the largest and least-visited parks in Tanzania, where the dry season packs the Katuma River's pools with hippos.

The branch was added by the British in 1949, decades after the German-built Central Line had reached Kigoma. East African Railways worked it from Tabora depot, and among the first engines on it was the 27 class, sixteen ex-Malayan locomotives with a light axle load and a high firebox that let them run through the seasonal floods on the Mpanda and Kigoma lines.

Mpanda to Kaliua

The train leaves Mpanda at seven in the morning and heads north. Katumba is the first stop, then the long run through the miombo, the open woodland that covers most of western Tanzania, to the Ugalla River, reached just before midday. The river bounds Ugalla River National Park to the south, and it is the branch's weak point: when the bridge has flooded, TRC has stopped the trains. Usinga, Lumbe, Kangeme and Uyumbu follow through the afternoon, and the train reaches Kaliua, on the Central Line, at about half past five.

Kaliua to Tabora

From Kaliua the train turns east onto the main line and runs an hour behind the train from Kigoma. Urambo was the heart of the kingdom of Mirambo, the Nyamwezi king who built the largest state in nineteenth-century East Africa. The train reaches Tabora, the great junction of the Central Line, at about nine in the evening; see the Central Line page for the town and the line on to Kigoma.

The train

The train is TRC's Ordinary, with first-class and second-class sleeping compartments, third-class seats and a restaurant car. Tickets are sold either to Tabora or through to Dodoma: the Dodoma service leaves Tabora just after midnight and arrives at about half past nine the next morning.

TRC sells its metre-gauge trains on a booking site of their own, separate from the SGR's, and opens each train for sale two days before it runs. On 27 October 2026 the site had one train from Mpanda on sale and none towards it, so the times towards Mpanda are not given here. The journey takes about 14 hours.

Times as of October 2026, from TRC's metre-gauge booking site. Check departures on TRC's metre-gauge booking site (opens in a new tab).

Mpanda to Tabora

On to Dodoma

The Dodoma service leaves Tabora at 00:02 and reaches Dodoma at 09:32 on Thursday, where the SGR runs on to Dar es Salaam. The two railways are ticketed separately, so book each train on its own site.

Metre-gauge tickets are sold on TRC's metre-gauge booking site, not the SGR one. Choose the stations and the train, then a seat or berth; the site sends a payment reference by text message, to be paid by mobile phone or at an agent, and the ticket is collected at the station with identity documents for every adult travelling.

From Mpanda to Tabora the Ordinary train costs 27,500 shillings in a first-class sleeping compartment, 21,200 in second-class sleeping and 11,100 in third class. Through to Dodoma it is 47,600, 35,400 and 17,900. Children pay half, and infants travel free.

No rail pass covers the Mpanda branch. Interrail and Eurail are European schemes, and Tanzania is not among the countries in Interrail's list of covered railway companies (opens in a new tab). Buy a ticket for each journey from TRC.

Checked October 2026 against Interrail's list of covered railway companies (opens in a new tab).

The railway ends in a market town, and almost everything worth the journey is in the wild country south of it: Katavi National Park, whose headquarters at Sitalike are 35 km from Mpanda, and the river that runs through it.

For the other railways in Tanzania, see the Central Line, which runs from Dodoma through Tabora and Kaliua to Lake Tanganyika, the SGR from Dar es Salaam to Dodoma, and the TAZARA to Zambia.

The train reaches Tabora at about nine in the evening, so a traveller not going on to Dodoma will usually spend the night in the town; see the Central Line page for the line on to the lake.

At the Mpanda end, Mbali Mbali's Katavi lodge is inside the park itself.

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