The birth and development of the Natal railways

The dream of 1859 is now a reality. The call of those hardy Natal pioneers for a railway to "the far interior" has not gone unanswered. The ringing cheers which echoed along the sandy streets of Durban to salute South Africa's first railway train on that Tuesday morning in June, 1860, have long since died down, and the old Natal railway Company is no more, but a message had been signalled. Its meaning read - "Go ahead !" Over thirty years passed before the first train steamed over the Drakensberg into Charlestown, six months before the Laing's Nek tunnel was completed; nineteen years later, when the Act of Union became effective and the South African Railways came into being, the railway system of Natal had expanded to over one thousand route-miles.