LUSAKA, Zambia — "Hello! My Chinese friend!" On the tracks at the New Kapiri Mposhi Railway Station in Zambia's Central Province, civil engineer Stanley Simushi greeted in fluent Chinese.

Simushi pointed to a group of workers replacing sleepers on a section of track inside the station. Using wrenches and crowbars, the crew removed fastenings and spikes, lifted the rails and installed new sleepers.

New Kapiri Mposhi is the terminus of the Tanzania-Zambia Railway, or TAZARA, which runs from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, to this point in Zambia. The railway was built with interest-free loans from China and officially handed over to the governments of Tanzania and Zambia in 1976.