The original 1902 French station, a long single-storey building with a clock tower, pastel-painted walls, and a sleepy frontage that has seen better days. The station was the reason Dire Dawa exists — the railway needed flat ground 40 kilometres north of Harar, which is up in the mountains, and the town grew around the depot.
The old line has been retired but the buildings are preserved and partly used as a museum. The yard contains rusting French locomotives and carriages from the 1920s through the 1970s. Knock at the office for the caretaker, who will let you wander. The new Chinese-built standard-gauge railway runs from a separate station to the north.