and second class cars were built by Waggonfabrik Uerdingen and MAN. The third class passenger cars consisted merely of empty covered goods wagons – called Aimahu, "land canoe", by the Africans. Simple wagons remained predominant in the following years. At the end of 1912 the (Togo railway; TE) had over 20 passenger-, post- and luggage-cars and 174 freight cars. Development after the First World War At the beginning of August 1914, the First World War led to slight damages of railway line, which were quickly fixed by the invading French troops. In the first years after the takeover by the British-French associations, the railways of Togo were operated by the neighboring Gold Coast Government Railways. After the end of the First World War the railway line was taken over by the mandate administration of French Togoland. The termini of the coast railway were renamed to Lomé and Aného. As a mandate holder, France was reluctant to invest in the railways because the return of the area could not be ruled out. An initially planned parallel line from Tsévié to Tokpli, about 50 kilometers north of Aného, was not realized. The integration into a continuous railway network of French West Africa, the (RCFAOF), was also not realized. After Togo gained its independence in 1960, the railways were promptly and completely switched from steam- to diesel locomotive traction. The German car fleet was continued to operate for a long time. Old, German two- and four-axle cars were still to be found during the 1970s. At that time, four pairs of trains ran daily on the coastal railway, which took just over 80 minutes to travel the 44 kilometers. Lomé station was rebuilt in 1970. The warehouses and locomotive sheds from the German colonial period remained almost unchanged. The line to Aného was shut down in 1985. Today, most parts of it have been dismantled. Still, since 1961, a 22 kilometer long private meter-gauge line is located at Kpeme, handling phosphate-transport for (SNPT) from its mine at Hahotoe north of Lake Togo to a pier on the coast. See also Rail transport in Togo References Footnotes Literature Franz Baltzer: Die Kolonialbahnen mit besonderer Berücksichtigung Afrikas. Berlin 1916; Reprint: Leipzig 2008, (preview on Google-Books). Franz Baltzer: Togo. In: Freiherr von Röll: Enzyklopädie des Eisenbahnwesens. Band 9, Berlin/Wien 1921, S. 332–334 (online). Kolonialpolitisches Aktionskomitee: Die Eisenbahnen Afrikas – Grundlagen und Gesichtspunkt für eine koloniales Eisenbahnpolitik