“Railroad to Nowhere" proposed by Mississippi evokes memories of railroad built in Africa in 1890’s, called the "Lunatic Express,” a story told in a new novel by John Gaudet to be released by Brandyla
October 5, 2006 (Press Release) --
The tag line, “Railroad to Nowhere,” caught on recently when Mississippi’s powerful Senate delegation attempted to slip a line item into the emergency spending bill for $700 million. The largest earmark in US history was to support a plan to rebuild a freight line along the Gulf Coast to allow the state instead to use the right of way for a new highway. Not so far back in history a parallel can be found in the “Lunatic Express.” Also conceived of in order to confront an emergency, but in 1894 it was neither Katrina nor Iraq; the subject was a railroad from the East African coast at Mombasa to Lake Victoria in the interior.
The case was put by Sir Gerald Portal in a report to the British Parliament. All the right reasons were there, the need to ensure protection of the source of the Nile from Britain’s enemies, a great potential market for British goods, the huge traffic expected, and a revolutionary effect in settling the region. Not far off from Mississippian hopes this year to turn the struggling Gold Coast into ‘Las Vegas South,’ and provide a safe passage for rail cargo during hurricanes and floods.
Like the Mississippi earmark, political resistance to the 1894 venture surfaced immediately, including the Liberals pronouncement that the Government had no right to drive a railway through country owned by the Masai. And by what right did England have to assert mastery over thousands upon thousands of unlettered African tribesmen? Such arguments along with the claim that it would be a waste of taxpayers’ money were easily brushed aside by the Tories, after all if England were not to act they would by default leave it to other nations to take up the work and England would be seen as “…too weak, too poor, and too cowardly to do ourselves.” Not far from what Trent Lott might come up with perhaps in a pinch.
And the cost? Estimated at 3 million pounds in 1894, or $432 million in today’s currency, which, when near completion in 1902, had climbed to – guess what – 793 million dollars!
Did it deserve the moniker, Lunatic Express? The wild nature of it – shaky looking wooden trestle bridges, enormous chasms, hostile tribes, men dropping by the hundreds from diseases, and man-eating lions pulling railway workers out of carriages at night – Lunatic Express seemed to fit. However, an early traveler, Winston Churchill, had the last say, “The British art of ‘muddling through’ is here seen in one of its finest expositions. Through everything – through the forests, through the ravines, through troops of marauding lions, through famine, through war, through five years of excoriating Parliamentary debate, muddled and marched the railway...”
This fall Brandylane Publishers, an independent press in Richmond, VA, will publish “The Iron Snake,” a new novel by John Gaudet based on the saga of this railroad and the people affected by it (Brandylane Publishers Inc, $16.95 plus shipping, $5.95).
By the way, the railway is still in use today in Kenya.
The case was put by Sir Gerald Portal in a report to the British Parliament. All the right reasons were there, the need to ensure protection of the source of the Nile from Britain’s enemies, a great potential market for British goods, the huge traffic expected, and a revolutionary effect in settling the region. Not far off from Mississippian hopes this year to turn the struggling Gold Coast into ‘Las Vegas South,’ and provide a safe passage for rail cargo during hurricanes and floods.
Like the Mississippi earmark, political resistance to the 1894 venture surfaced immediately, including the Liberals pronouncement that the Government had no right to drive a railway through country owned by the Masai. And by what right did England have to assert mastery over thousands upon thousands of unlettered African tribesmen? Such arguments along with the claim that it would be a waste of taxpayers’ money were easily brushed aside by the Tories, after all if England were not to act they would by default leave it to other nations to take up the work and England would be seen as “…too weak, too poor, and too cowardly to do ourselves.” Not far from what Trent Lott might come up with perhaps in a pinch.
And the cost? Estimated at 3 million pounds in 1894, or $432 million in today’s currency, which, when near completion in 1902, had climbed to – guess what – 793 million dollars!
Did it deserve the moniker, Lunatic Express? The wild nature of it – shaky looking wooden trestle bridges, enormous chasms, hostile tribes, men dropping by the hundreds from diseases, and man-eating lions pulling railway workers out of carriages at night – Lunatic Express seemed to fit. However, an early traveler, Winston Churchill, had the last say, “The British art of ‘muddling through’ is here seen in one of its finest expositions. Through everything – through the forests, through the ravines, through troops of marauding lions, through famine, through war, through five years of excoriating Parliamentary debate, muddled and marched the railway...”
This fall Brandylane Publishers, an independent press in Richmond, VA, will publish “The Iron Snake,” a new novel by John Gaudet based on the saga of this railroad and the people affected by it (Brandylane Publishers Inc, $16.95 plus shipping, $5.95).
By the way, the railway is still in use today in Kenya.
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