competing
coast ports, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. Neither of these competing
lines were able to pay any adequate return upon the capital invested,
and the common aim of reaching the Diamond Fields was blocked and
greatly delayed. Kimberley is only 485 miles by rail from the nearest
outlet on the coast; but 1600 miles of converging railway lines were
actually built before one was extended from De Aar to Kimberley, in
November, 1885, then first putting the richly productive diamond mines
in railway communication with the coast.
All
the lines in operation at this time were single lines, with the
exception of the Cape Town-Wynberg line, and the first six miles of the
Port Elizabeth-Uitenhage line. The most difficult engineering in the
course of this railway extension was in the crossing of the barrier
range of mountains forming the ridge of the karoo plateau. After
repeated surveys an entrance for the
