The Gezira Light Railway
The Gezira Light Railway
Alan M. Keef
128 pages. 275x208mm. Printed in full colour throughout on gloss art paper, perfect bound with laminated card covers.
ISBN13 : 9781915069276
£18.00
Alan M. Keef
128 pages. 275x208mm. Printed in full colour throughout on gloss art paper, perfect bound with laminated card covers.
ISBN13 : 9781915069276
£18.00
The Gezira Light Railway has been researched very thoroughly and Alan M. Keef is one of the few people to have actually been there in relatively recent times. This was a narrow gauge railway of superlatives; over 1,000 kilometres of track, at least 1,800 bogie wagons and 140 locomotives on the roster. This book covers the history to its zenith in the 1970s and decline as the British cotton industry itself declined. The irrigation scheme, a major civil engineering achievement in its own right that made all this possible, is also covered.
The Gezira Light Railway - Sample Images
Hunslet No. 5136 of 1957 possibly upon arrival at Wad el Shafie alongside another cotton train already there. Despite the broken window the locomotive looks smart and new so may have only been in service for only a short time. One wonders if the driver thinks that his status requires that he wear a suit complete with the ‘winklepicker’ shoes of the era! Mike Swift collection
Described as a ‘very mixed permanent way train’ about to leave Wad el Shafie, it comprises a slightly decrepit locomotive, No. 101 (HE No. 6206 of 1962), a cotton wagon, one of the vans presumably for tools, a tank wagon, the manrider for the workforce and another cotton wagon bringing up the rear. The tank wagon is likely to be dropped off somewhere with fuel for locomotives or agricultural machinery. Alan Wild