Field Note 001 / Mauritania

The iron ore railway

A westbound passage from Choum to Nouadhibou

9–10 October 2025Photography and field notes by Tommaso Bruno

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A long line of iron-ore wagons crossing open desert in northern Mauritania.
Fig. 01 A loaded iron-ore train moving west across northern Mauritania. Steel wagons and mineral dust form a continuous line through the open desert.

On 9 October 2025, I joined a westbound iron-ore train at Choum and travelled towards Nouadhibou in an open wagon.

The railway connects the mining region around Zouérat with the Atlantic coast, crossing more than seven hundred kilometres of northern Mauritania. Built to move iron ore, it has become one of the defining lines through this part of the country.

From the wagon, the landscape unfolded in a continuous sequence of steel, sand, exposed rock and scattered settlements. These photographs follow one passage along the line. They do not attempt to describe the railway in its entirety, but record how its scale and purpose become visible from within.

The railway to the coast

The railway is owned and operated by Société Nationale Industrielle et Minière, commonly known as SNIM. Loaded trains travel west from the mining area around Zouérat to the mineral port at Nouadhibou; empty wagons make the return journey inland.

For most of its route, the track occupies only a narrow strip of ground within an immense landscape. Yet the line connects mines, settlements and the coast across distances that would otherwise remain difficult to traverse. This record begins at Choum, where the railway passes close to the town before continuing west.

This Field Note documents neither the mines nor the loading of the ore. Its subject is the journey between the interior and the Atlantic, observed from beside the track and from within a loaded train. The map provides orientation rather than a continuous GPS trace.

Google Maps reference showing Choum and Nouadhibou in northern Mauritania, with original map attribution.
Fig. 02 Google Maps reference showing Choum and Nouadhibou in northern Mauritania. The map provides geographical orientation and does not reproduce the complete railway alignment. Captured 10 September 2026; Google attribution remains visible.
Open in Google Maps
Place
Northern Mauritania
Segment
Choum–Nouadhibou
Field dates
9–10 October 2025
Direction
Westbound
Position
Open wagon loaded with iron ore
Media
Photography and field notes
Low buildings and shopfronts beside the railway at Choum.
Fig. 03 Low buildings beside the railway at Choum, where this journey began. The town marks one of the points at which the industrial line meets local settlement and movement.

Steel and stone

SNIM locomotive BB 205, with faded blue and cream paint, coupled to ore wagons.
Fig. 04 SNIM locomotive BB 205 coupled to the ore wagons. Dust, faded paint and corrosion reveal the repeated work of carrying mineral loads across the desert.
Railway tracks running through sand towards distant rock formations and a train.
Fig. 05 A straight section of railway beyond Choum. Ballast and steel divide the sand before disappearing towards the distant rock formations.
The Ben Amera monolith rising above sand and sparse vegetation in Mauritania.
Fig. 06 The Ben Amera monolith rising from the surrounding desert. Located close to the railway corridor, its mass remains visible across the open ground as the train moves west.

Along the train

Several locomotives and a long sequence of ore wagons seen from across the desert.
Fig. 07 Locomotives pulling a long sequence of ore wagons across the desert. From a distance, the train becomes a narrow horizontal line within the landscape.
Close view of an ore wagon's steel body, wheels and suspension beside the track.
Fig. 08 The steel body, wheels and suspension of an ore wagon seen from track level. Dust settles across every surface exposed to the journey.
Ore wagons receding into the distance beside sandy ground and a trackside marker.
Fig. 09 Loaded wagons extending along a slight curve near Choum. The end of the train remains outside the frame.

A single passage

View from inside the train over the iron ore in open wagons stretching into the distance.
Fig. 10 Looking west over the loaded wagons during the journey to Nouadhibou. From inside the train, iron ore fills the foreground while the railway draws the landscape towards a single vanishing point.

These photographs describe the railway through the relationship between infrastructure and landscape. Seen from the wagon, the train is not an isolated spectacle. Its scale emerges gradually: in the repetition of the wagons, the weight of their load, the settlements beside the track and the distances crossed before reaching the coast.

Scope and limits

The record follows one westbound journey made on 9 and 10 October 2025. It does not document the mines, the port operations, the people employed along the railway or the experiences of other travellers. It records what could be seen from one position, during one passage across northern Mauritania.

Download Field Note PDF · 5 pages

Photography and field notes

Tommaso Bruno
Northern Mauritania, 9–10 October 2025.

© 2026 Tommaso Bruno. All rights reserved.

Sources

Institutional context

Accessed 8 September 2026. Map from Google Maps, captured 10 September 2026.