State Politics Towards Tourism and Cultural Heritage Development Within the Railway Transport System in Ngaoundere, Camerooon: The Challenges and Way Forward

Tourism is the act of travelling away from home for leisure, relaxation, business or professional purposes. It is also a social, cultural and economic venture which people undertake outside their usual environment. Cultural tourism is travelling to experience places, artefacts, and activities that authentically represent a people’s past and present, (historical sites).Transport plays a key role in providing accessibility to diverse historical, cultural and heritage sites. It permits tourists to reach various destinations, facilitating cultural exchange amongst people from different cultures; enabling them to share ideas and experiences. Railway transport has a significant place in cultural heritage tourism as it provides access to historical sites and landscapes along scenic routes; allowing travellers to experience a region’s cultural heritage through the journey. The railway system itself often showcase its historic train carriages, stations and infrastructure as part of the tourist attraction, thus contributing to the preservation and promotion of cultural heritage tourism through immersive travel experience. Railway infrastructure in Cameroon was initially established by the Germans between 1884 and 1916, during their protectorate. Today the railway transport is primarily operated by Camrail, a subsidiary of the Bolere Africa logistics. The Ngaoundere railway station is one of those historic railway infrastructure that promotes cultural heritage tourism in the northern part of Cameroon. The railway line was extended from Yaounde to Ngaoundere, in 1974. That in itself is historical. The magnificent railway station edifice is an embodiment of cultural heritage aesthetic. However, the glowing image of this edifice has been coated by problems of maintenance, insufficient investment, reliability issues and many others. This paper examines the efforts made and challenges faced, in a bid to see how the Ngaoundere railway station can be transformed into a veritable cultural heritage monument. We exploited both primary and secondary sources for our work. We also adopted a chronological and analytic approach to our discussion. From our sources, we concluded that the rail transport network and its station in Ngaoundere (for now) is the most reliable source of mass transportation to the northern regions of Cameroon and beyond. It needs to be valorised, conserved, expanded, promoted and preserved within the ambit of cultural heritage and tourism development.