What does this photograph depict?
Q This mystery photoh usedd to hhang iin my grandparents’ d nts’ house. I think the man on the bed is someone from my grandmother’s Walker family, and that it was taken in Africa during the Boer War.
Yvette Buckingham
A This photograph probably shows a railway contractor’s train working on the construction or repair of a track in British Southern Africa (South Africa and what are now Botswana, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe) and was taken 1890–1910, but it’s not military.
The European fascination with seizing territory in Africa began in the 1880s, and several colonial powers attempted to lay railways across their newly acquired lands up to the First World War. The British laid by far the greatest number and distance. Railways were crucial in the reconquest of the Sudan and the Second Boer War, when heavily armed trains kept the lines open. Britain also built the ‘Lunatic Line’ between Mombasa and Kampala, but we can rule that out because it was built with imported labour from India rather than native Africans.
If this was a military train, I’d expect to see much more uniformity in the dress. More importantly, I’d expect to see weapons – in particular rifles – but there is none. The small pile at the far end of the bogie wagons, when magnified, appears to be tools.
Phil Tomaselli, who would like to thank James White for his advice
1 TRAIN
The locomotive is very small and looks like a 0–4–0 tank engine, typical of those that were used by contractors to build lines. 0–4–0 engines were used by the Shire Highlands Railway in Nyasaland (now Malawi).
2 WAGONS
The bogie wagons are bolster ones that can carry large quantities of rail track.
3 TRACK BED
The tracks are laid on finer ballast, with larger stones beneath on a layer of compacted ground. The ballast hasn’t yet spread much, suggesting that the track bed is newly made.
4 HEADGEAR
Although this chap appears to be wearing a lightweight military tunic, his headgear is distinctly civilian. The other Europeans wear a mixture of clothing and sun helmets. There are no obvious rifles or other weapons, which suggests that they’re civilians.
5 GAUGE
The distance between rails appears to be 3 feet 6 inches, which would be standard on British-built railways. It’s certainly the wrong gauge for a German railway.