Construction
Construction began from the Red Sea port city of Massawa in 1887, heading towards the capital city of Asmara. Progress was slow, thanks to the long climb up the mountains to the high plateau of inland Eritrea, and the substantial civil engineering works required; the line reached Asmara in 1911. It was extended to Keren in 1922, Agat in 1925, Agordat in 1928, and finally Bishia in 1932, for a total length of 280 km (174 mi). Bishia (Biscia in Italian) proved to be the end, even though the builders had ambitions of reaching the Sudan Railways line. Benito Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia led to resources being diverted elsewhere, including the upgrading of the line from Massawa to Asmara to handle more traffic.
Building the line from Massawa to Asmara was a significant undertaking. Even with the tighter turns and narrower right-of-way allowed by a narrow gauge railway, the line required 65 bridges (including a fourteen-arch viaduct crossing the Obel River) and 39 tunnels, the longest being 320 m (1,050 ft). Even so, there were still grades of more than 3%. The highest point on the railway is just east of Asmara at 2,394 m (7,854 ft) above sea level.
The construction of the railway was considered worldwide as a renowned achievement of the first half of the twentieth century.
Read more about this topic: Eritrean Railway
Famous quotes containing the word construction:
“When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people.”
—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)
“No real “vital” character in fiction is altogether a conscious construction of the author. On the contrary, it may be a sort of parasitic growth upon the author’s personality, developing by internal necessity as much as by external addition.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“There is, I think, no point in the philosophy of progressive education which is sounder than its emphasis upon the importance of the participation of the learner in the formation of the purposes which direct his activities in the learning process, just as there is no defect in traditional education greater than its failure to secure the active cooperation of the pupil in construction of the purposes involved in his studying.”
—John Dewey (1859–1952)