Success attended the expedition of 1878 so far as it led to the flight of Shere Ali, the occupation of Kandahar by Sir Donald Stewart, the control by the British of the three main highways between India and Afghanistan, and the signing of the treaty of Gandamak; but the murder of Sir Louis Cavagnari and his staff at Kabul, in September, 1879, rendered necessary the sending of a further expedition, General Sir Frederick (afterwards Lord) Roberts being directed to proceed with a British force by the Kuram route to Kabul.
Thereupon the whole question of transport facilities was revived afresh, and, although the expedition itself was a conspicuous success, delays and commissariat difficulties arose which might have been avoided had better railway facilities been available.[84] The terminus, at that time, of the Punjab State Railway was at Jhelum, seventy miles from Rawal Pindi, 180 from Peshawar, and 260 from Thal, the frontier post of the Kuram pass; and in spite of the vigorous efforts made, between 1878 and 1880, to extend the line, Jhelum remained the actual railway base throughout, no material assistance being gained from the twenty miles of extension which, owing to the great engineering difficulties presented by innumerable ravines, could alone be carried out during that period. Commenting on the "painfully slow" progress being made by the Khyber column, The Times of October 13, 1879, remarked:—
It is now upwards of a quarter of a century since the chairman of the Sind railway commenced to broach the idea of connecting the Khyber and Bolan passes with the railway system of India. For more than a quarter of a century he has unsparingly advocated these views.... Had the views so persistently advocated by Mr. Andrew, and so repeatedly brought forward by us, been adopted at the commencement of the struggle last October, as we then ventured to insist upon, vast sums would have been spared in the hire of transport, and we should have been spared the ignominy of feeling that a British army, nominally on active service, has occupied five weeks in covering less than seventy miles.
Rawal Pindi—one of the most important strategical points in India—was not reached by the railway until October, 1880, by which time the Afghan War of 1878-80 had been brought to a close; and the further extension of the Indian railway system to Peshawar,—another position of the utmost strategic importance, situate ten miles from the entrance to the Khyber Pass, and 190 from Kabul—was effected by May, 1883.
From a military point of view, however, still greater importance was attached, at that time, to the securing of rail communication through the Bolan Pass to Quetta and Pishin in the direction of Kandahar, this being the route by which, it was thought, the Russians would be certain to attempt their invasion of India,—if they should undertake one at all.
Surveys for an extension of the Sukkur-Sibi desert line to Pishin were made whilst that line was under construction, and early in 1880 the Government gave directions that the extension was to be proceeded with; though they decided that the route to be taken from Sibi should be through the Hurnai Pass in preference to the Bolan route, the former being regarded as preferable for the broad-gauge line (5 ft. 6 in.) with which the "Kandahar State Railway," as it was to be called, would be provided.
Arrangements were at once made for collecting the necessary materials and for carrying through the work with the least possible delay; but further progress was checked, in July, 1880, by the disaster at Maiwand. In the following October the Gladstone Government, who had succeeded the Beaconsfield Administration and had, apparently, resolved upon a complete reversal of the Indian policy of their predecessors, followed up an earlier announcement of their intention to withdraw from Kandahar by giving orders for the cessation of the work on the Sind-Pishin railway. Maiwand having been avenged, and some refractory tribes subdued, Afghanistan was completely evacuated by the British at the end of April, 1881, and the construction of frontier railways in India was dropped, for the time being.
In the middle of 1883 came a reconsideration of the position. Russia was then showing increased activity in the direction of Merv, and the British Government concluded, apparently, that they had been too hasty in ordering the abandonment of the Kandahar State Railway scheme nearly three years before. So they gave orders that the work should be resumed; though, in order to render this volte face on their part less conspicuous, they directed that the undertaking should now be known only as the "Hurnai Road Improvement Scheme"; that it should be proceeded with quietly, in order that it might not attract too much attention, and that the suggestion of a "road improvement scheme," instead of a railway, should be kept up by the engineers not being allowed to have even a temporary line of rails for conveying stores, materials for bridges, etc., from the base to the passes. This last-mentioned stipulation meant that the stores and materials had to be either transported on the backs of camels or dragged on wheels up stream; and it was estimated that, in addition to the great loss of time, a sum of not less than £1,000,000 was wasted in this way before the order prohibiting the use of temporary rails was rescinded.
A start was made with the work in October, 1883, and the fact that the Russians were then actually approaching Merv, and that a sudden advance by them in force was regarded as probable, led to the laying of great emphasis on the need for construction being pushed on with the utmost vigour. When, in February, 1884, the Russians did occupy Merv, the pressure brought to bear on the Engineer-in-chief became still more acute. Then, in May, the British Government formally announced that, owing to the encroachments of Russia, the line would be built. The fiction of a "Hurnai Road Improvement Scheme" was now abandoned. Henceforth the line under construction was to be known as "The Sind-Pishin State Railway."