CAPE TO CAIRO RAILWAY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9954, 16 September 1910, Page 2

CAPE TO CAIRO RAILWAY.

PROSPECTS FOH THE SOUDAN

The last, section of the Cape to Cairo Railway from the north, from Khartoum to Wad Medani, a distance of about one hundred miles, has nowbeen open to public traffic for more than six months. It was opened on January 1, and the traffic carried during the first half-year's working has surpassed all expectations. The amount of produce which thin new section has tapped has, in fact, been a revelation to everyone. The takings for the first month's working were £IO.OOO. Prom most parts of the Soudan hitherto served by the railway one or two trainloads a week would be considered good. On this new section a train every day has hardly been sufficient to carry down all the stuff, chiefly dhurra (native corn), gum and cotton. The fourthclass native passenger traffic ha« produced almost enough to pay the working expenses of the section. This is the first niece of the railway to get off the desert part of the Soudan and break into the- edge of the land which is fertile naturally without artificial irrigation, and if the success of this first hundred miles is any guide to the possibilities of the rest of the country to the south, it looks as if the moist sanguine forecasts of the future of the country from a commercial point of view were about to he realised very shortly. The railhead is by now some way further south, and the next section will probably be opened to traffic next winter.

Chicago's new swing bridge across the Chicago River has a movable part '27~t feet. loiei, each leal of tvhiVh weighs •'■> 000.000 nound.s.