When it comes to
railways, the British are famous for
their colonial legacy of one of the world's most extensive railway networks
built across then British India but their lesser known and far grander
vision was the
Cape to Cairo railway network intended to
stretch across the sea of colonial pink on the
African continent. Left
incomplete due to politics
and geography,
most of it is still
almost as it was built in
its day.
Egypt,
historically and internationally, was the
second country after the UK to have a working railway, from Alexandra to Cairo built by Robert Stephenson
himself. This was the first
railway on the African continent, and the first section begun in 1852, was opened to Kafr-el-Zayat in 1854 ; a
further section throughout to Cairo was opened two years latter. From Cairo
the railway was carried on to Suez,
thus completing the overland route by rail.
Until the opening of the Suez canal in 1869 it was a source of considerable revenue to the Egyptian State Exchequer. Yet
its continued development eventually put the country into debt and the
history of the railroad in Egypt is inextricably bound to that of the country's economic development.
With more than 5,000 kilometres (3,100 miles)
of track,
Sudan has one of the longest
railways in Africa, extending from Port Sudan on the Red Sea to Nyala in the war-torn west, and from Wadi Halfa on the Egyptian border
to Wau in the far south.
But it now carries less than six percent of Sudanese traffic, and the last passenger train to depart from north Khartoum station left in 2010,
according to a policeman guarding the empty building. Ironically,
it was conflict that initially prompted the development of Sudan's railway. The first section of the
present-day network was built by
the British in the late nineteenth century to
support their military operations against Sudanese leader Muhammad Ahmad al-Mahdi, who had defeated the
colonial forces some ten years earlier. It was
later expanded, and used profitably to export animals, sugar and cotton primarily from Gezira state, Sudan's agricultural heartland south of Khartoum, between the Blue and White Nile.
The best known
section in its time (
traveled on by the likes of Teddy Roosevelt
while on safari) laid
tracks through what is
now Kenya and
Uganda initially
as a means to
attract British
settlers to the colonies of
British East Africa as well provide freight transport links from the interior of the Uganda Protectorate out to the coastal city of Mombasa's port and harbour. Established as the
Uganda railway and then
the East Africa Railway Corporation as sections
extended further into the region, it came to be
popularly known as
the Lunatic Express. The story of why it was built, how and
by whom is a
fascinating glimpse of
history, geography and
Hollywood style
adventure.
South Africa's
railway network has
given it its own place in
history, including the story of
Jack the Signalman - a baboon
who helped his crippled master retain his railway job. Not only did he get his monthly rations from the government but he also received an employment number. Cape Town
was where Cecil Rhodes
dreamed of linking the
African continent from top to bottom - a lost d
ream of an era of colonial and military history
closely intertwined with massive engineering
works and the
evolution of modern transportation. Some of it
carefully preserved even today as this newly BRICS nation pours investment into
high speed transportation linking its capital city and the surrounding economic region.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:11 AM on December 22, 2011 [2 favorites]