was built to Port Harcourt between 1913 and 1916. This railway was extended to Kaduna via Kafanchan in 1927, connecting the Eastern Railway to the Lagos–Kano Railway. The Eastern Railway was extended to its northeastern terminus of Maiduguri between 1958 and 1964. Decline Years of neglect of both the rolling stock and the right-of-way have seriously reduced the capacity and utility of the system. Couplings of the ABC kind, vacuum brakes and non-roller bearing plain axles are also obsolete. By early 2013, the only operational segment of Nigeria's rail network was between Lagos and Kano. Passenger trains took 31 hours to complete the journey at an average speed of 45 km/h. Rehabilitation A project to restore Nigeria's railways has been underway since 2009. The eastern line from Port Harcourt to Maiduguri was restored at a cost of 427 million by Lingo Nigeria, Eser West Africa, and the China Gezhouba Group. In order to remedy the poor condition, efficiency, and profitability of the nation's railroads, the government is also seeking to privatize the Nigerian Railway Corporation. Under the privatization plan, the railways will be split into three concessions, each to be awarded for a period of 25–30 years. In 2019, the Cape gauge railways had only 15 functional locomotives. The 187 km Abuja–Kaduna line generated as much revenue in 2019 as the entire 3,505 km Cape gauge railway network combined. Standard gauge network In 2006, the government contracted with the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) to build the Lagos–Kano Standard Gauge Railway. It was later decided to complete the project in segments due to a lack of funds. After many delays, the segment from Abuja to Kaduna (187 km) opened officially on 26 July 2016. The Lagos–Ibadan section began construction in March 2017 and was inaugurated on 10 June 2021. The third section will link Kano to Port Harcourt and Lagos. The Warri–Itakpe Railway was begun in 1987 as Nigeria's first standard gauge railway, but it was finished in 2020 as the second standard gauge railway. The line was conceived as an industrial railway to supply the Ajaokuta Steel Mill with iron ore from Itakpe and metallurgical coal imported through the port of Warri. Although construction was originally planned to be completed in five years, sporadic funding stretched out the construction period over more than 30 years. In August 2017, the Minister of Transportation announced that the railway would be