page_title: Shire Highlands Railway Company
section_title: Extension to the Zambezi and beyond
hierarchical_section_title: Shire Highlands Railway Company / Extension to the Zambezi and beyond
caption_attribution_description: English: No. 66. Lomula Bridge - 49M - Shire Highlands Railway. February 1908
context_page_description: The Shire Highlands Railway Company Ltd was a private railway company in colonial Nyasaland, incorporated in 1895 with the intention of constructing a railway from Blantyre to the effective head of navigation of the Shire River. After problems with routing and finance, a South African 3 ft 6 in gauge railway was constructed between 1903 and 1907, and extended in 1908 to a Nsanje, a distance of 113 miles as water levels in the Shire River fell.
  As navigational problems in the Shire River continued, in 1912 the Shire Highlands Railway Company contributed to the construction by the British South Africa Company of the Central African Railway of 61 miles to the Zambezi, almost entirely within Mozambique. Although this line, completed in 1914, was owned by the separate Central Africa Railway Company Ltd, the Shire Highlands Railway Company operated all services on its line and was part-owner of its shares. In 1935, the railway undertaking of the Shire Highlands Railway and shares it held in the Central Africa Railway Company Ltd were transferred to a new company, Nyasaland Railways Ltd.
context_section_description: Further falls in Shire River level made it difficult, and often impossible, to use Port Herald for much of the year, so a port on the Zambezi river was needed. The British South Africa Company already had a concession to build a railway in Portuguese territory, and in 1912 the Nyasaland government agreed with the Shire Highlands Railway Company Ltd that it would redeem the land it had previously granted to the company for £180,800, and that company would pay this to British South Africa Company to assist with the construction costs of the Central African Railway in exchange for shares in the Central Africa Railway Company Ltd. This railway of 61 miles (98 km) from Port Herald to Chindio on the north bank of the Zambezi was completed in 1914. From here, river steamers went to Chinde on one of the mouths of the Zambezi, from where sea-going lighters continued to Beira, Mozambique. Although this route allowed Beira’s port to be used, it took two to three weeks to transport goods from Blantyre, involved three transhipments and exposed goods to the risk of water damage. The Central African Railway was expensive to construct yet poorly built, and soon needed extensive repairs. The Nyasaland government agreed support the line to Chindio financially for ten years, and paid on average £20,000 until 1924.
  In 1922, the Trans-Zambezia Railway Company completed a line, which had been approved by the Portuguese government, from Beira to Murracca on the Zambezi, opposite Chindio, so there was an almost-complete rail link from Blantyre to Beira except for the short river crossing by ferry. This was inconvenient and, in 1927, the British government commissioned a report on building a Zambezi bridge. When this bridge was completed in 1935, a new company, Nyasaland Railways Ltd was formed to take over the undertaking of the Shire Highlands Railway and the issued share capital of the Central Africa Railway Company Ltd. Nyasaland Railways Ltd retained responsibility for these railways until they were transferred in 1953 to the Federal government of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.
     
  Railways in Nyasaland were expensive to build and operated in difficult terrain involving costly maintenance, and used expensive imported coal as fuel. They carried relatively low tonnages, with little domestic traffic, relying instead on carrying exports and imports that varied in amount and type by season. Because of this, they charged up to three times the Rhodesian or East African rates for general freight. The UK Treasury and Nyasaland government provided some subsidies, but these still left freight very high.
caption: Lomula Bridge of the Shire Highlands Railway. February 1908
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "No. 66. Lomula (?) Bridge - 49M - Shire Highlands Railway. H. Brock. February 1908. \u00d2Many years ago I met an old engineer, Henry Brock, who, as a young man, was working on the construction of the Shire Highlands Rialway - and the Zambezi Bridge, too. He had a fascinating series of photos showing a lot of the construction detail. Recently I met his daughter - but, regretfully, all she could find were a handful of his photos.\u00d3 Part of a letter dated September 16, 1982 from John Hall. The photos are numbered and captioned, but only one, No. 50, is written up on the back.", "Image Software": "Picasa 3.0", "Image ExifOffset": "2736", "Image XPTitle": "[]", "Image XPKeywords": "[65, 0, 108, 0, 98, 0, 117, 0, 109, 0, 32, 0, 57, 0, 59, 0, 70, 0, 101, 0, ... ]", "Image Padding": "[]", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0210", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "af4ecf873f92ea20d6cd0e6f19209c00", "EXIF Padding": "[]"}