NAME OF COMPANY: The Cape To Cairo Railway
GAUGE: Irish Gauge (1600mm, 5'3")
PERIOD OPERATIONAL: 1873-Present
MOTTO: For Africa and Its People
HISTORY/ DESCRIPTION: The beginnings of the Cape to Cairo began with the massive expansion of railways in the Cape Province starting in 1873, where a massive set of differences over the rail gauge led to the adoption of the Irish Gauge (OTL, they went for the much-narrower Cape Gauge) for the purposes of lines into the interior of South Africa, feeling that the massive loads of the anticipated traffic into South Africa's mineral-rich interior would be a major deal for the railroad, and that it was better to get the railroad's engineering right from the off instead of having to go fix it later. Influencing this was the man who was the first great engineer of the railroads, legendary British engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who was living in South Africa in an attempt to help with his numerous health problems. Hurting as he was, Brunel's genius was manifest, and the Cape Government Railways expanded massively from its outset in 1873 into the interior. While Brunel's death in 1881 did hurt some of the engineering of the project, the company's success was very real, and the works in South Africa drew major money from Europe, a fact that frequently inflammed tensions between various populations, but led to changes for the better for many.
The biggest developer of the railroads was legendary entrepreneur Cecil Rhodes, the ardent British nationalist and industrialist who began his plan to build a railway to cross the continent in 1884. The world's economic growth of the time fueled his dreams, and the discovery of the vast Witwatersrand gold veins in 1886 turned a rush into a flood. After more than a million British and Irish people landed in South Africa between 1888 and 1900, Rhodes found his way of looking forward. Injured by a high-pressure locomotive explosion in 1893, Rhodes' savior (and subsequent life-long friend) Mohandas Gandhi was a major player in pushing the idea. Rhodes' pushing for the project led to it stretching across the territory named in his honor by 1907, while a second line from Alexandria, Egypt to Kampala, British East Africa, was finished in 1911. After the 1905 decision by the World Zionist Congress to set up their homeland in British East Africa, immigrants flooded East Africa, and following Germany's defeat in World War I and the integration of German East Africa into the British Empire, Rhodes' dream was finished in the post-war era, being completed in 1921.
The Cape to Cairo came to be an economic lifeline for most of Africa and indeed much of Europe. Africa's spectacular economic growth in the 20th Century turned the Dark Continent into one of the wealthiest areas on Earth to live, and the Cape To Cairo Railway, which became part of African Railways System in 1926, became the spine of a network that grew to include over 75,000 miles of track across South Africa, Rhodesia, South West Africa, Angola, Mozambique, East Africa (which became the State of Israel in 1941), Congo, Ethiopia, Sudan, Egypt, Libya and Palestine. The Cape to Cairo remains the longest Broad-gauge railroad on Earth, and industrial development and swelling passenger traffic led to much of it being double-tracked in the 1930s, with some parts in Africa needing four-track lines to handle the traffic. The line also operated the immense Class 125 Garratt-type steam locomotives, the 4-6-6-4+4-6-6-4, oil-fueled double-tendered monsters being the largest steam locomotives ever operated on Planet Earth. The line was also an early proponent of electification, with a licensed and slightly modified variant of General Electric's GG1 electric locomotive entering service in 1939 and remaining in operation until 2005. The line's high-quality of engineering has endured despite the explosion in traffic over its routes.
GAUGE: Irish Gauge (1600mm, 5'3")
PERIOD OPERATIONAL: 1873-Present
MOTTO: For Africa and Its People
HISTORY/ DESCRIPTION: The beginnings of the Cape to Cairo began with the massive expansion of railways in the Cape Province starting in 1873, where a massive set of differences over the rail gauge led to the adoption of the Irish Gauge (OTL, they went for the much-narrower Cape Gauge) for the purposes of lines into the interior of South Africa, feeling that the massive loads of the anticipated traffic into South Africa's mineral-rich interior would be a major deal for the railroad, and that it was better to get the railroad's engineering right from the off instead of having to go fix it later. Influencing this was the man who was the first great engineer of the railroads, legendary British engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who was living in South Africa in an attempt to help with his numerous health problems. Hurting as he was, Brunel's genius was manifest, and the Cape Government Railways expanded massively from its outset in 1873 into the interior. While Brunel's death in 1881 did hurt some of the engineering of the project, the company's success was very real, and the works in South Africa drew major money from Europe, a fact that frequently inflammed tensions between various populations, but led to changes for the better for many.
The biggest developer of the railroads was legendary entrepreneur Cecil Rhodes, the ardent British nationalist and industrialist who began his plan to build a railway to cross the continent in 1884. The world's economic growth of the time fueled his dreams, and the discovery of the vast Witwatersrand gold veins in 1886 turned a rush into a flood. After more than a million British and Irish people landed in South Africa between 1888 and 1900, Rhodes found his way of looking forward. Injured by a high-pressure locomotive explosion in 1893, Rhodes' savior (and subsequent life-long friend) Mohandas Gandhi was a major player in pushing the idea. Rhodes' pushing for the project led to it stretching across the territory named in his honor by 1907, while a second line from Alexandria, Egypt to Kampala, British East Africa, was finished in 1911. After the 1905 decision by the World Zionist Congress to set up their homeland in British East Africa, immigrants flooded East Africa, and following Germany's defeat in World War I and the integration of German East Africa into the British Empire, Rhodes' dream was finished in the post-war era, being completed in 1921.
The Cape to Cairo came to be an economic lifeline for most of Africa and indeed much of Europe. Africa's spectacular economic growth in the 20th Century turned the Dark Continent into one of the wealthiest areas on Earth to live, and the Cape To Cairo Railway, which became part of African Railways System in 1926, became the spine of a network that grew to include over 75,000 miles of track across South Africa, Rhodesia, South West Africa, Angola, Mozambique, East Africa (which became the State of Israel in 1941), Congo, Ethiopia, Sudan, Egypt, Libya and Palestine. The Cape to Cairo remains the longest Broad-gauge railroad on Earth, and industrial development and swelling passenger traffic led to much of it being double-tracked in the 1930s, with some parts in Africa needing four-track lines to handle the traffic. The line also operated the immense Class 125 Garratt-type steam locomotives, the 4-6-6-4+4-6-6-4, oil-fueled double-tendered monsters being the largest steam locomotives ever operated on Planet Earth. The line was also an early proponent of electification, with a licensed and slightly modified variant of General Electric's GG1 electric locomotive entering service in 1939 and remaining in operation until 2005. The line's high-quality of engineering has endured despite the explosion in traffic over its routes.