Yeah around here it seems that theres is a one upsmanship about the torah and the talmund. The jury is still out on Chabad. They seem rather cultish in my opinion and in the opeion of my reform rabbi
I did like Dan’s first posting!
The gauge situation, however, is even worse than it might first appear.
The North African countries largely use standard gauge, while South Africa and surrounding countries use 3’6". East Africa is largely metre gauge, particularly the former East African Railways in Kenya and Uganda. Tanzania was metre gauge, but the Chinese built Tanzania -Zambia “Tan -Zam” railway was built to 3’6" with an eye to connection through to South Africa. In West Africa there is a lot of metre gauge but there are some standard gauge lines, for mineral traffic in Liberia and the whole system in Gabon. Mauritania (which is almost North Africa) has a standard gauge line for mineral traffic.
But there are, as Dan points out, a few political problems to solve before the governments would agree to a line of any gauge, let alone be able to afford to build it.
At least Israel (and Palestine) and Egypt have the same standard gauge. I’ve mentioned elsewhere my father’s photos of his wartime troop trains. One of the lesser known outcomes of the six day war was that the Israel Railways ended up with an EMD G8, (from Egypt) having only had G12s before the war! Is the swing bridge over the Suez Canal still in woking order?
Peter
Peter,
When I did the ditch in '98, I didn’t recall seeing any bridges other than the one I standing on…but then again, at that point my concentration was elsewhere…
Dan
I forgot the Trans-Indonesian railway!
There would be some long undersea tunnels requiring electric traction.
Were you planning to include West Papua and West Timor?
Even connecting Java and Sumatra would be difficult. Not to mention Kalimantan up there in the North!
Much as I like to blame the CIA for unrest in various countries (some people suggest the CIA engineered a change of government in Australia in 1975) there seems to be quite a lot of evidence that the Indonesians can organise some pretty nasty unrest on their own without outside help from Al Qaeda or the CIA. Aceh was a bit that way while the buildings were still there.
Peter
I was a bit slow in picking up on that one, Dan. Your lack of attention to rail related matters is understandable in those circumstances!
I would assume that Egypt restored some connections to Sinai when the Israelis returned that area. Perhaps they have tunnels now?
Peter
I would presume they did, but much of the sides even then were still littered with junk. If I recall, it’s something like 170 ft waterline to masthead, so it would have to have been a swing or drawbridge. But unless it was a distinct hazard, it probably didn’t even register, since I couldn’t see anything but sand to port anyway and not a great deal of water to starboard.