The most remarkable feature about this contract was the public outcry that ensued. British methods were held up in comparison with American hustle, much to the disparity of the former. British builders were assailed as lethargic, wedded to obsolete methods, and consequently had suffered the penalty of such conservatism by being beaten in a most hollow manner. The same critics, however, failed to shriek so loudly in acclamation a year later in appreciation of a British firm which accomplished a feat which even startled the Americans. This was in connection with a bridge of five spans, each 105 feet long, which was turned out of a Midland shop to replace the structure which had been destroyed by the Boers across the Tugela River in Natal. Both British and American engineers were invited to tender, and the American firms, despite their wonderful organisation, hustling methods, and their remarkable facilities for accomplishing quick work, were dismayed to find that they had been beaten by their British rivals as hollow as the latter had been vanquished some months before. The successful firm rolled 100 tons of steel, had it inspected, tested and passed by the Natal Government engineer in eight hours. It had undertaken to deliver the first span within six weeks of the receipt of the order—as a matter of fact, it was completed within nineteen days. The Americans themselves admitted that the British performance was wonderful, and that complete revenge had been taken for the Atbara contract.
As the railway pushed its way towards Khartoum, the ranks of the labourers were swelled by large numbers of dervishes, who had grown disheartened at the result of their resistance to the British advance on the northern borders of the Mahdi’s stronghold, had realised the impotency of their efforts, and consequently had decided to throw in their lot on the railway. The increased labour enabled the work to be prosecuted even more energetically, though a certain amount of time was lost in drilling this raw material into the mysteries of wielding the white man’s tools.
When the dervishes first saw the locomotive they marvelled. Steam was beyond their comprehension. They believed stoutly that the engine’s boiler was packed with animals, and when the driver blew his whistle many fled in complete terror. To them the agonising shriek of the animal on wheels was more terrifying than the hail of lead from a Maxim gun. Indeed, it is reported that one chief, when he saw a locomotive puffing along slowly and laboriously with its load of cars, went so far as to assail the British officers for their callous cruelty in making so small a beast pull such a heavy, long load!
The Atbara bridge, after fulfilling all requirements for eleven years, had to be reconstructed. It was not found strong enough to withstand the heavy loads of to-day, for on the Sudan railway weights, lengths and speeds of trains have increased strikingly during a decade. When overhaul became imperative, an English firm secured the commission to rebuild the American structure, and to-day there is nothing left of the bridge which provoked such acrimonious discussion at the time of its erection. Owing to the elaborate nature of the building operations a temporary bridge had to be thrown across the river to carry the railway traffic.
When Khartoum was gained another pause was unavoidable owing to the necessity to cross the Blue Nile in order to continue southwards to Sennar. This arm of the great Egyptian river is fickle, for in times of flood it rushes along at some 11 miles an hour. The contract for carrying the railway to the opposite bank was secured by the firm entrusted with the overhauling of the Atbara bridge, and it is a noble work of its class. The river being navigable, facilities had to be provided to permit vessels to pass up and down. This end was met by introducing an electrically operated rolling lift span working like a drawbridge. To enable railway construction to be carried on while the river was being negotiated a temporary timber bridge was thrown across the waterway. While this was in progress the power of the waters rushing through this tributary when in flood was emphasised in no uncertain manner. A considerable quantity of scaffolding intended for the support of the steel bridge during erection was torn up and hurried down-stream.
When Sennar was gained, a deviation directly eastward was made in order to gain El Obeid, which is the centre of the gum trade, one of the most prosperous and expanding industries of the Upper Sudan. Owing to its more convenient situation on the main river, Omdurman always has been the market for this article, the supplies being conveyed across country by camel caravan. It is generally considered that now El Obeid has been gained by the railway, that the decadence of Omdurman is certain, but though this may be inevitable up to a point, the town is always bound to command a certain position of importance inasmuch as it is the centre of a considerable pilgrim traffic.
On the advance to El Obeid the bridging of the White Nile had to be carried out, and here again British engineering triumphed, for the contract was awarded to the builders of the Khartoum bridge. This firm, with these two Nile bridges and the Victoria Bridge across the Zambesi, may be said to have imprinted their name indelibly in Africa in connection with bridge-engineering. The point of crossing is Goz Abu Guma, and owing to the erratic character of the White Nile its design occupied considerable deliberation. This river is sluggish both in time of flood and in the dry season. Indeed, it might be described as a huge ditch. When low the water occupies a channel about 1,500 feet in width, but in the wet season it sprawls across the country for a matter of three miles or so.
It was decided, however, that the bridging of the normal channel would suffice, the line being carried over the part subject to periodical inundation upon well-built embankments. The over-water structure comprises 9 steel spans each 146 feet in length, and one swing-bridge span 245½ feet in length to permit navigation up- and down-river, because the Sudan Development & Exploration Company maintain a steamship service between Khartoum and Gondoroko, the head of navigation on the Nile, 1,081 miles from Gordon’s city. The spans are 6 feet above the level of High Nile, and are supported on masonry piers sunk in steel caissons, or cylinders, under the agency of compressed air, to a depth ranging between 30 to 50 feet below low water.
Although the iron link has stretched beyond Khartoum to the south, Alexandria and Cairo are not in through railway communication with the capital of Sudan, 1,480 miles away. The Egyptian railways have their most southerly outpost at Shellal, just below Assuan, which is about 24 hours’ journey from the Mediterranean seaboard by the White de luxe express. The terminal of the Sudan system is at Haifa, just south of the border between the two countries. The river Nile constitutes the artery of communication between these two railway points, the steamer occupying about 40 hours. This break in the iron chain possesses distinct drawbacks, the most serious of which is transhipment between steamer and railway. The expense and inconvenience of this route, with its breaking bulk, reacted severely upon the Upper Sudan, and accordingly the latter Government decided to secure an independent outlet to the coast. There was only one means of accomplishing this end, and that was to strike eastwards across country to gain the Red Sea.
This was not a simple enterprise, especially under conditions which did not lend themselves to the expenditure of a large sum of money. An easy graded line was imperative, and the surveyors had to search diligently for such a route, because a range of hills breaks away from the northern edge of the Abyssinian plateau, to run parallel with the coast-line of the Red Sea to the Gulf of Suez. Investigations along the coast resulted in Suakin, 305 miles distant from Atbara, being selected as the sea terminus, and the surveyors succeeded in securing a location giving no banks heavier than one per cent., and with no curves of a sharper radius than 1,155 feet.