This is the documentary from the BBC World Service.
I'm Marcia Vega.
My mother and I would live home at five a.m.
to catch the train.
By around eight or nine, the sun would be up and we'd walk a two to three hour journey on foot,
carrying heavy loads on our head under the scorching sun.
Aboard the 8.30am from Luena to Lobito, Moesca Comba,
a long-serving train inspector on Angola's Benguela Railway, is telling me about his life.
The diesel locomotive growls ahead, pulling nine carriages,
as the train winds through open plains dotted with reed hearts, tin homes and roadside stalls.
We're heading west, through the country's interior, on a 700km journey, towards the Atlantic coast.
I was born in 1973.
My mother raised five children on her own.
This was a time in Angola when hunger was everywhere.
She survived only by selling fish.
When he was a child, this railway was his family's lifeline.
At the time, there was minimal transportation.
So the train was hugely important when I was growing up.
Cacomba and his mother would travel on the train each day to sell fish.
Once at the market, my mother and I would do our business there.