3-085-872 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The New [British] Government Railway from Sierra Leone towards the interior: scenes along the line, 1898. '1. A Trolley at Wellington. 2. The Five-Chain Curve between Chinetown and Kissey. 3. Portrait Group taken after the Public Inspection of the New Line. 4. Sierra Leone, Viewed from Mount Oriel. 5. Launching the 100 ft. Girder into Position at Orogou Viaduct, about Ten Miles from Freetown. 6. Wellington Viaduct, Six Miles from Freetown. 7. Hastings Brook, Crossed by the Railway Thirteen Miles from Freetown. From Photographs supplied by Mr. J. A. Page. The new railway now being constructed...in the colony of Sierra Leone runs from Freetown towards the interior, but at present is only sanctioned for a distance of 55 miles, of which 30 miles are nearly completed. The country is mountainous, and many physical difficulties are encountered in the course of construction; while the malarious climate and the natives' want of skill cause considerable delay. On Dec. 3 last, his Excellency the Governor and Lady Cardew invited the principal Europeans of Freetown to view the railway. The party were conveyed...to the Orogou River, where a bridge of lattice-work girders, with five fifty-feet spans and one hundred-feet span, was then nearly completed.' From "Illustrated London News", 1898.