early days of the Cape to Cairo Railway, Africa

 

This was the vision, primarily of Cecil Rhodes, in the glory days of the British Empire at the end of the 19th century to have a continuous south to north railway from Capetown in South Africa to Cairo in Egypt.  It never happened because of political problems, not least because not all the countries it would have gone through had British rule until 1918, but then there were economic factors. Most of the route today does have railways - with the exception of a major portion between Uganda and Sudan which is far from politically stable .  The other completion problem is that the railways have three different gauges - standard, metre and cape (3'6").

The pic is an old 'magic lantern' slide said to have been taken in Rhodesia (today Zimbabwe).