Cape to Cairo Railway

Common card · No. 205960

The Cape to Cairo Railway is an unfinished project to create a railway line from southern to northern Africa. It would have been the largest and most important railway on the continent. It was planned as a link between Cape Town in South Africa and Port Said in Egypt. The project was never completed. Completed parts have been inoperative for many years, as a result of wars and lack of maintenance by the former colonies and current governments. The plan was initiated at the end of the 19th century, during the time of Western European colonial rule. It was largely based on the vision of Cecil Rhodes, an attempt to connect African colonies of the British Empire through a continuous railway line from Cape Town, South Africa to Cairo, Egypt.

Read on Wikipedia · Image Edward Linley Sambourne, Public domain