Repair of Railways
Whilst all these arrangements in regard to operation and transport were thus being perfected, the need had arisen for an equally complete organisation in another direction, that, namely, of providing for the repair or restoration of railway lines damaged or destroyed by the enemy.
Since the American Civil War the art of railway demolition had made considerable advance by reason of the use for this purpose of dynamite—an agency which was now to be employed very freely by the Boers. With dynamite they easily blew up the bridges, or material portions thereof; they destroyed the track for considerable distances by the simple process of exploding dynamite cartridges under alternate rail-joints; they wrecked culverts, pumps and water tanks, and they effectively damaged locomotives which they had not time or opportunity to remove. Then, among other things, they derailed engines and trucks by means of mines; they caused obstructions by throwing down into the railway cuttings boulders of up to two or three tons in weight; they cut telegraph lines; they removed or smashed up instruments and batteries at railway stations; they wrecked the stations; they burned many railway trucks, or otherwise rendered them useless; they set fire to stacks of fuel, and, when dynamite cartridges were not available, they deprived the locomotives of their vital parts and tore up considerable lengths of rails.
By December, 1899, it had become evident that the Railway Companies and the Fortress Companies of the Royal Engineers, sent out to the Cape and brought up to their fullest strength, would be unequal to the requirements of the prospective situation. The Railway Corps thus formed was, accordingly, augmented by a Railway Pioneer Regiment, composed of miners, artisans and labourers who had been employed at Cape Town or Johannesburg, volunteers from the ranks of the Army (preference being given to those already possessed of experience in railway work), and employés of the Orange Free State Railway. Some Field Railway Sections, created to form the nucleus of a staff to take over the working of railways in the enemy's country became construction parties, doing repairs only, and having no control of traffic except at railhead. In addition to all these, a large number of natives were engaged through Native Labour Depôts opened at De Aar, Bloemfontein and Johannesburg, the number so employed at any one time attaining a maximum of about 20,000.
It was in the Orange Free State and the Transvaal that the Boers displayed their greatest activity in the way of railway destruction. At Norval's Pont and Bethulie they broke down the bridges crossing the Orange River, which divided Cape Colony from the Orange Free State. Before leaving Bloemfontein (occupied by the British March 13, 1900), they destroyed all the bridges and all the culverts on the railway in their rear; they blew up miles of the permanent way, and they left the railway itself an almost complete wreck. North of Bloemfontein they pursued similar tactics along 180 miles of track, on which they wrecked more or less completely no fewer than fifty bridges, including the one over the Vaal River—a high structure with seven spans each of 130 feet. No sooner, too, had the line been reopened as far as Johannesburg than Commandant De Wet made a raid on it and undid all that the repairing parties had done over a length of thirty miles. Speedily following the re-establishing of rail communication with Pretoria, the Boers began a fresh series of guerilla attacks on the lines both in the Transvaal and in the Orange Free State; and they continued these attacks for months—until, in fact, their power for doing further mischief had been finally checked.
In carrying out repairs and reconstruction work of such vital importance to the advance and security of the British forces, the policy adopted by the Director of Railways was that of employing Royal Engineers to do rapid temporary repairs—with a view to having a line of some sort made available with the least possible delay—and leaving permanent or even semi-permanent repairs to the Railway Pioneer Regiment. At convenient sidings on the railways throughout the theatre of war construction trains were stationed in charge of permanent-way inspectors and sections of Royal Engineers who had at their disposal, at each of such sidings, a gang of men—whites and natives—varying in number from 300 to 1,000, according to circumstances. Infantry working-parties were also obtained wherever possible.
Gangers began a patrol of the lines at dawn. Information as to any break or alarm was communicated to the nearest military post and telegraphed to the Deputy-Superintendent of Works, who thereupon ordered the dispatch of a construction train to the scene of any reported or prospective break without waiting for confirmation of the news received or of the suspicions aroused.
This well-organised system operated to great advantage. At 2.30 a.m. on January 1, 1901, for instance, information reached the Deputy-Superintendent of Works at Bloemfontein that a break of the line had occurred at Wolvehoek, sixty-three miles distant. The construction train was instantly dispatched, and the repairs were completed by 8 a.m. Rail communication with Johannesburg, notwithstanding the great amount of destruction done by the Boers, was restored within eleven days of the arrival of Lord Roberts at that place. It was restored to Pretoria within sixteen days of the occupation thereof by our troops. On the western side, where the enemy had been no less active than in the Orange Free State, rail communication was reopened within thirteen days of the relief of Mafeking.
In the official report on Field Transport in the South African War, it is said in regard to the Railways Department:—
All temporary repairs in the Cape Colony, Transvaal, and Orange River Colony were carried out, with a few exceptions, by the military railway staff. Up to 31 October, 1900, these temporary repairs included the restoration of seventy-five bridges, ninety-four culverts, and 37 miles of line. A detail of the general advance from Bloemfontein to Johannesburg, a distance of 265 miles, will give some idea of the expedition with which repairs were affected. The period during which the advance was being made was from 3 May to 11 June, 1900, in which space of time the following temporary repairs were executed: Twenty-seven bridges, forty-one culverts, 10 miles of line, including seven deviations, varying in length from 200 yards to 2 miles.
From 6 June to 15 November, 1900, the Imperial Military Railways were more or less seriously damaged by the enemy on 115 occasions, but all such damages were promptly repaired, and did not materially affect the working of the railways, except that the running of trains after dark had to be suspended. During the same period fully 60 per cent. of damaged bridges and culverts were permanently or semi-permanently repaired.
Of bridges, over 200, with spans ranging from nine feet to 130 feet, were destroyed wholly or in part during the progress of the war; but even here the speedy restoration of traffic did not, as a rule, present any very grave difficulty. The course generally adopted, as one suited to South African conditions, was, not to start at once on the repair of the damaged bridge, but, in order to meet the exigencies of the moment, to construct a diversion or deviation line alongside, with small low-level bridges on piers, built of sleepers and rails.[41] These deviation lines offered great disadvantages by reason of their sharp curves, their steep approaches and their liability to be washed away in wet weather. The building even of temporary bridges across deep rivers having a considerable volume of water also caused inevitable delays. But the lines in question served their purpose until the reconstruction of the damaged bridges—taken in hand as speedily as possible—could be effected. Anticipating the needs for this more permanent work, the Director of Railways had arranged before leaving England for a supply of girders, similar to those in use in South Africa, to be sent out, together with sufficient timber, of useful dimensions, to rebuild the whole of the railway bridges in the Orange Free State, should it become necessary so to do—as, in point of fact, it did. Of new rails he had available, at one time, a total length of 300 miles.
By October, 1900, the makeshift repairs completed on all the lines taken from the enemy were being gradually converted into permanent or semi-permanent reconstruction by the Works Department of the Imperial Military Railways; but the continuous guerilla raids of the enemy still made it impossible to run trains by night. These conditions led to a resort to the system of blockhouses which, first constructed for the defence of railway bridges in Natal during the advance for the relief of Ladysmith, and used extensively when Lord Roberts marched from Bloemfontein into the Transvaal, leaving a long track of railway lines behind him, were subsequently so far extended that the whole of the railway lines in the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony were provided with them.[42] So well did they answer the purpose that by April, 1901, the worst of the trouble involved in maintaining railway communications was over, although another year was to elapse before peace was restored.