Suakin-Berber Railway

The Suakin-Berber railway in Sudan was a short-lived military project that never reached completion. Its construction began in February 1885, being intended to provide a connection between Berber on the River Nile and Suakin on the Red Sea littoral for the rapid deployment of troops and military equipment in Britain’s involvement in the Mahdist war.

In May 1885, after barely three of months of work during which only 20 of the intended 280 miles of track had been laid, at a cost approaching £1 million, Britain suspended its war with the Mahdi, pulled out of the Sudan and terminated the Suakin-Berber railway.

The escalating difficulties and costs of building the railway served to provide ammunition to Gladstone's opponents in Parliament and in so doing helped in bringing down his second administration.

In 1883 Britain became involved in hostilities against the Mahdi revolt, sending General Gordon to Khartoum to organize the evacuation of military and civilian staff and families. In March 1884 Khartoum came under siege with Gordon and several thousand civilians trapped within its defenses. The British government vacillated for six months before ordering General Garnet Wolseley to lead a mission to rescue Gordon and the beleaguered inhabitants of the city. Wolseley sailed up the River Nile from Cairo in early January 1885, but was too late to save Gordon who was murdered by Mahdist forces on 26 January.

The idea of building a military railway to provide a supply route for Wolseley's force was promulgated in June 1884 when the British government sent a company of Royal Engineers to Suakin to build jetties and to prepare the port as a railway depot. Wolseley, however, argued against the idea, preferring to use the Nile for transportation. Thus it was only after the failure of his expedition in January 1885 that the railway plan was resurrected.

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