The railway is 1,000 mm ( 3 ft 3 + 3⁄ 8 in) gauge and virtually all single-track with passing loops at stations. Construction began at the port city of Mombasa in British East Africa in 1896 and finished at the line's terminus, Kisumu, on the eastern shore of Lake Victoria, in 1901. The Uganda Railway was named after its ultimate destination, for its entire original 1,060-kilometre (660 mi) length actually lay in what would become Kenya. The survey led to the first general map of the region. At the time there was only one caravan route across the length of the country, forcing Macdonald and his party to march 4,280 miles (6,890 km) across unknown routes with limited supplies of water or food. In December 1891 Captain James Macdonald began an extensive survey which lasted until November 1892. With steam-powered access to Uganda, the British could transport people and soldiers to ensure dominance of the African Great Lakes region. In December 1890, a letter from the Foreign Office to the treasury proposed constructing a railway from Mombasa to Uganda to disrupt the traffic of slaves from its source in the interior to the coast. In July 1890, Britain was party to a series of anti-slavery measures agreed at the Brussels Conference Act of 1890. Savage Background īefore the railway's construction, the Imperial British East Africa Company had begun the Mackinnon-Sclater road, a 970-kilometre (600 mi) ox-cart track from Mombasa to Busia in Kenya, in 1890. It was decided to build the railway as quickly as possible its construction was viewed almost as a military attack-casualties were inevitable and might be large if the objective were to be attained and momentum not lost. No such concern was evident among parliamentarians, missionaries or administrators for those at work on the construction of the Uganda Railway. The official approach, British and local, to both slavery and free porter labour included a genuine belief that the man doing the work had real interests which deserved concern and protection.
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