Robert Stephenson and Company - Important Exports in Twentieth Century

Important Exports in Twentieth Century

One of early exports for the company was to Egypt when in 1833 he was asked by governor of Egypt to build Suez-Alexandria railway. It was an early copy of the idea of Suez Canal. It was believed by that governor that Stephenson's railway may be better than idea of Suez Canal. The company really began in it and finished some parts of it. But due to political French objection, he was soon asked to stop working. In 1849 Muhammad Ali died, and in 1851 his successor Abbas I contracted Robert Stephenson to build Egypt's first standard gauge railway. The first section, between Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast and Kafr el-Zayyat on the Rosetta branch of the Nile was opened in 1854. This was the first railway in the Ottoman Empire as well as Africa and the Middle East. In the same year Abbas died and was succeeded by Sa'id Pasha, in whose reign the section between Kafr el-Zayyat and Cairo was completed in 1856 followed by an extension from Cairo to Suez in 1858. This completed the first modern transport link between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, as Ferdinand de Lesseps did not complete the Suez Canal until 1869. At Kafr el-Zayyat the line between Cairo and Alexandria originally crossed the Nile with an 80 feet (24 m) car float. However, on 15 May 1858 a special train conveying Sa'id's heir presumptive Ahmad Rifaat Pasha fell off the float into the river and the prince was drowned. Stephenson therefore replaced the car float with a swing bridge nearly 500 metres (1,600 ft) long.