Jan and I had one further excursion. As well as the cannons and old buildings, he’d also located another piece of colonial anachronism that existed down near the docks on the east side of the city. Someone had established a railway museum and obtained various artefacts from many different sources. The national railway system closed down in 1975 and, apart from the evidence of some tracks in places, Sierra Leone had become a rail free country until the Chinese started to build lines into the interior again in recent years to transport high grade iron ore down to the ocean.
The collection of locos and other railway jumble were hidden away for many years during the civil war, but once peace had been re-established, news of this amazing piece of industrial archaeology came to light to one of the peacekeepers form the UK army. He spearheaded the efforts to raise funds and first preserve the collection then restore and rehouse the amazing set of engines. Using various tourist guidebooks, I steered Jan through the streets of central Freetown on a Saturday morning. Even now the place was heaving as people shopped in the early cool air. Every inch of the main streets seemed to be taken up with hawkers selling clothes, mobile phone covers, vegetables and fruit, newspapers, CDs and videos. The traffic was moving, yes, buy only at a few miles an hour every minute or two. It did eventually thin out a little on the east side of town and just where the main road out into the rest of the country was heading out to the south at a roundabout, we veered off into an industrial area on a small stump of a peninsula called Cline Town. Although there were still some residential blocks, compounds and the odd informal cluster of shelters, the area was more full of workshops and warehouses, and at the far end several large gates heading to wharfs. The instructions from the guides were vague and we had circled a couple of streets several times before we finally spotted a small sign against a warehouse. There is was, but it was shut, despite the guide informing us of the opening hours.
The Cotton Tree in central Freetown – looking a little worse for wear
Big disappointment as crawling over old railway engines is a good distraction for me but we still had a few hours to spare so Jan asked me where else I might like to go. I was happy to explore anywhere so he told me of a couple of places out east that he would like to see. One was the report that a bridge over a river had collapsed and nearby there was a community making charcoal that Jan had visited once before and he had promised to take them some of his pictures.
When I Went To 