Identifier: southafricaitsfu00argy (find matches)
Title: South Africa and its future
Year: 1903 (1900s)
Authors: Argyll, John Douglas Sutherland Campbell, Duke of, 1845-1914 Creswicke, Louis
Subjects:
Publisher: London : T.C. & E.C. Jack
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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frican Railways,strikes north to Pietersburg into the heart of the tropical part of theTransvaal. The country it traverses is partly flat and partly hilly,at some places thick bush and at others wide grassy plains. In thenorthern district there is a large population of Kaffirs who cultivatethe extremely fertile soil, and produce great quantities of mealies(maize) and Kaffir corn, which products, together with timber forthe mines, form the principal items of traffic carried by the railway.The Beira railway to Salisbury, originally a narrow gauge, has nowbeen widened to the standard 3 feet 6 inches gauge of South Africa,and carries all the traffic for the Mashonaland mines. In all, South Africa possesses approximately 5000 miles of rail-way, having a capitalised value, including rolling stock, of aboutj(!50,000,000, or ;^ 10,000 per mile. The three important systemsare the Cape Government Railways, the Natal Government Rail-ways, and the Central South African Railways (Transvaal and 144
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South African Railways Orange River Colony). The Cape system has a mileage of 2135miles, and in addition it works 587 miles of the Rhodesian Railways,or a total of 2722 miles. The Natal system covers 612; miles,and the Central South African system 1312 miles. In additionto these there is the Beira Railway, already briefly described, andthere are also several small privately-owned railways. The threechief systems own altogether 1239 engines and 27,806 waggons,and a large but still insufficient equipment of coaches for pas-senger traffic. Great attention has been given and much moneyexpended in the past two years in bringing the rolling stock upto a state of efficiency for dealing with the greatly-increased trafficanticipated on the establishment of peace in South Africa. TheCentral South African Railways—the State Railways now owningand working the old Free State and Netherlands systems—havealmost doubled the carrying capacity of these railways. Natal had129 engines before the war

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