When the 650 kilometer long railroad line was built in Mauritania between 1960 and 1963 to develop the iron ore mine near Zouérate, a total of 21 six-axle diesel locomotives were procured from Alsthom in France. Later, around 1973/74, 5 more CC were built. The MIFERMA (Mauritania Iron-Ore Mining Company) CC # 01 to # 26 weighed 126 tons (second series 138 tons) and had two SACM diesel engines with 1380 hp each (2760 hp per locomotive). The CC Class 01-21 locomotives were based upon the SNCF Class CC 65000, a French passenger diesel locomotive also built by Alsthom.
Like the CC 65000s, the MIFERMA locomotives were fitted with two diesel engines. However, the MIFERMA locomotives had more powerful versions of the engines. They were also equipped with a roof mounted "skyline casing", which housed special filtration equipment, to deal with the unusually sandy and dusty Saharan atmospheric conditions. Another change which made them differ from the CC 65000s was their use of different bogie trucks (these being related to the trucks used on the CC 14000s) and a lower carbody with cabs taken from the CC 7100s. The cabs were slightly altered as they featured an extra center cab door on each end. In 1974, the assets of MIFERMA were nationalized. Thereafter, the Mauritania Railway and its locomotives were owned and operated by the parastatal Société Nationale Industrielle et Minière (SNIM). Beginning in 1981, the CC Class 01-26s were supplemented by US built EMD SDL40-2s. In September 1997, they operated their last iron ore trains and subsequently, they were confined to SNIM's passenger train services and finally most withdrawn in 2001. One locomotive was used until 2009. More or less all the locomotives have survived to this day, completely gutted, as wrecks. 20 of them stand in two rows near Fderîck, in front the CC # 20, 22 and 21.
