Northern Africa Railroad Development
Encyclopedia
Northern Africa Railroad Development started in the 1850s. In Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

, a rail line between Alexandria
Alexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...

 and Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

 had been completed in 1856, three years before work began on the Suez Canal
Suez Canal
The Suez Canal , also known by the nickname "The Highway to India", is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Opened in November 1869 after 10 years of construction work, it allows water transportation between Europe and Asia without navigation...

. On May 14, 1858, a rail carriage ferry
Train ferry
A train ferry is a ship designed to carry railway vehicles. Typically, one level of the ship is fitted with railway tracks, and the vessel has a door at the front and/or rear to give access to the wharves. In the United States, train ferries are sometimes referred to as "car ferries", as...

 on this line played a decisive role in Egyptian history. Someone overlooked the normal precaution of securing the wheels of one carriage with chains (only one carriage crossed at a time), and this carriage fell into the Nile
Nile
The Nile is a major north-flowing river in North Africa, generally regarded as the longest river in the world. It is long. It runs through the ten countries of Sudan, South Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Egypt.The Nile has two major...

, drowning Prince Ahmed, heir apparent to the throne of Egypt. This resulted in Ahmed's brother Ismail
Isma'il Pasha
Isma'il Pasha , known as Ismail the Magnificent , was the Khedive of Egypt and Sudan from 1863 to 1879, when he was removed at the behest of the United Kingdom...

 being put on the throne.

Planning

Ismail saw himself as a builder. He took out huge loans and earned a lot of money from long-staple cotton
Cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....

, the production of which had quintupled, and the price quadrupled - because of the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

. Among Ismail's list of projects were 910 miles (1,464.5 km) of new railroads, stretching 231 miles (371.8 km) southwards from Cairo to Assiut, and including the first line in the Sudan
Sudan
Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...

, to Khartoum
Khartoum
Khartoum is the capital and largest city of Sudan and of Khartoum State. It is located at the confluence of the White Nile flowing north from Lake Victoria, and the Blue Nile flowing west from Ethiopia. The location where the two Niles meet is known as "al-Mogran"...

. Ismail's railroad plans were to wait more than 30 years before they were realized.

Construction

In 1896, Major Horatio Kitchener decided to build the railroad Ismail had planned, but this railroad was not to bring civilization to the Sudan or to transport cotton, as Ismail had planned, but to feed and supply the army in the Sudan for the Mahdist War
Mahdist War
The Mahdist War was a colonial war of the late 19th century. It was fought between the Mahdist Sudanese and the Egyptian and later British forces. It has also been called the Anglo-Sudan War or the Sudanese Mahdist Revolt. The British have called their part in the conflict the Sudan Campaign...

.

Gauge

The man who approved the expenditure for the railroad, Lord Cromer, assumed that the railroad would be narrow gauge
Narrow gauge
A narrow gauge railway is a railway that has a track gauge narrower than the of standard gauge railways. Most existing narrow gauge railways have gauges of between and .- Overview :...

 (presumably something like 2' 0" or 2' 6"), to save money. Kitchener, however, insisted on the Cape gauge
Cape gauge
Cape gauge is a track gauge of between the inside of the rail heads and is classified as narrow gauge. It has installations of around .The gauge was first used by Norwegian engineer Carl Abraham Pihl and the first line was opened in 1862.- Nomenclature :...

 of 3 in 6 in (1,066.8 mm), the same track width that Cecil Rhodes was then laying between Kimberley
Kimberley, Northern Cape
Kimberley is a city in South Africa, and the capital of the Northern Cape. It is located near the confluence of the Vaal and Orange Rivers. The town has considerable historical significance due its diamond mining past and siege during the Second Boer War...

 and Bulawayo
Bulawayo
Bulawayo is the second largest city in Zimbabwe after the capital Harare, with an estimated population in 2010 of 2,000,000. It is located in Matabeleland, 439 km southwest of Harare, and is now treated as a separate provincial area from Matabeleland...

. It turned out that Kitchener had met Rhodes only a few weeks before, when Rhodes stopped in Cairo to obtain some donkeys for use in Rhodesia
Rhodesia
Rhodesia , officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state located in southern Africa that existed between 1965 and 1979 following its Unilateral Declaration of Independence from the United Kingdom on 11 November 1965...

 from Kitchener. There is little doubt why Kitchener insisted on his width of track.

Difficulties

Even though Rhodes diverted three locomotive
Locomotive
A locomotive is a railway vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. The word originates from the Latin loco – "from a place", ablative of locus, "place" + Medieval Latin motivus, "causing motion", and is a shortened form of the term locomotive engine, first used in the early 19th...

s to Kitchener that were intended for his own railroad, it did not prevent Kitchener's railroad from becoming an engineering nightmare. There was a "total lack of suitable labor, tools, and materials".

Completion

In the end, with the help of some "fellahin" dragged down from Egypt, and 200 convicts who were paroled for the job, the rail line was completed. There was, however, an unfortunate side effect. The result of the unskilled labor force was "a fairly bumpy ride and frequent accidents — locomotives that flew off tracks and down 15 feet (4.6 m) embankments were hoisted back on the rails and continued along as if nothing had happened."

The railroad helped win the war for the British, Egyptians, and Sudanese against the Khalifa
Caliph
The Caliph is the head of state in a Caliphate, and the title for the ruler of the Islamic Ummah, an Islamic community ruled by the Shari'ah. It is a transcribed version of the Arabic word   which means "successor" or "representative"...

. The rail line left a gap between Sellal, just south of Aswan
Aswan
Aswan , formerly spelled Assuan, is a city in the south of Egypt, the capital of the Aswan Governorate.It stands on the east bank of the Nile at the first cataract and is a busy market and tourist centre...

, and Wadi Halfa
Wadi Halfa
Wadi Halfa is a city in the state of Northern, in northern Sudan, on the shores of Lake Nubia . It is the terminus of a rail line from Khartoum and the point where goods are transferred from rail to ferries going down the Lake Nasser...

, however. Kitchener's line connected Wadi Halfa with Khartoum
Khartoum
Khartoum is the capital and largest city of Sudan and of Khartoum State. It is located at the confluence of the White Nile flowing north from Lake Victoria, and the Blue Nile flowing west from Ethiopia. The location where the two Niles meet is known as "al-Mogran"...

, in the Sudan.

See also

  • Cape-Cairo Railway
    Cape-Cairo railway
    The Cape to Cairo Railway is an uncompleted project to cross Africa from south to north by rail. This plan was initiated at the end of the 18th century, during the time of colonial rule, largely under the vision of Cecil Rhodes, in the attempt to connect adjacent African possessions of the British...

  • Transport in Egypt
    Transport in Egypt
    Transport in Egypt is centered in Cairo and largely follow the pattern of settlement along the Nile. The main line of the nation's railway network runs from Alexandria to Aswan and is operated by Egyptian National Railways...

  • North Africa
    North Africa
    North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...

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