Headquarters of Zambia Railways
The first railway in the country, operated by Rhodesian Railways (when the territory was administered as North-Western Rhodesia and North-Eastern Rhodesia) reached the Broken Hill mine as early as 1906, and the town became the northern base for the railway, which was the second biggest employer after the mining industry. A locomotive maintenance facility was constructed there. In 1909 the railway reached Ndola in what was to become the Copperbelt in the late 1920s.
The railway workers' unions played a large role in politics of the country. In racially-segregated colonial times before Africans had the vote, the town was the seat of Roy Welensky, leader of the powerful Rhodesia Railway Workers Union (RRWU), who became Prime Minister of the ill-fated Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, which was opposed by the Northern Rhodesia Railway Trade Union (the black Africans' union) led by Dixon Konkola and also based in Kabwe.
Today the town is the headquarters of Zambia Railways but employment levels on the railway have been heavily cut back.
Read more about this topic: Kabwe
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