Adunis to Mambiza Railway

Adunis-Mambiza Railway
Overview
Type	High-speed rail Heavy rail
Status	Operational
Termini	Adunis, Tsabara Mambiza, Garambura
Technical
Track gauge	1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in) standard gauge
Electrification	25 kV 50/60 Hz AC

The Adunis to Mambiza Railway, also known as the Trans-Bahian Railway and historically known as either the 'Adunis to Sainte-Germaine Railway' or the 'Imperial Rail', is a semi-complete railway linking eastern and western Bahia by way of the Ténéré desert. The construction of the railway began in the late 19th century under the supervision of Grégoire Cuvillier, Governor of Atudée. The main line was completed by 1922, with a planned modification and second line halting due to the Great War.

Original Main Line

The Adunis to Sainte-Germaine Railway, as it was originally known, originates from the Trans-Coian Imperial Railway plan concieved of and championed by Grégoire Cuvillier, the Gaullican colonial governor of Atudée in the late 19th century. Cuvillier proposed a railway from Adunis in the then-Gaullican colony of Atudée in Rahelia to Sainte-Germaine in Baséland in Bahia, crossing the Ténéré Desert and modern Behera into the the Gaullican colony of Haute-Gond (modern Yemet), before following the rough course of the Gonda River to the coast at Sainte-Germaine in Baséland. Although initial survey work was conducted in Atudée and the neighbouring colony of Ténéré in the 1870s and early 1880s, the project was reduced to the Ténéré Railway as Cuvillier's influence did not extend to the Bahian colonies and the Gaullican metropole viewed the project as too expensive.

The outbreak of the Sougoulie across Bahia in the early 1880s and the War of the Desert in Behera in the late 1880s changed the situation. The lack of infrastructure in the inland areas of Haute-Gond made the country difficult to bring back fully under Gaullican control in the Sougoulie, while the Ténéré Railway played a key role in the ability of the Gaullican military to depose Qamar VI in the War of the Desert while the role of expeditions from Gaullica's Bahian colonies in the conflict was limited due to the extreme difficulty of supplying large forces so far from supporting infrastructure.

Cuvillier presented the plan for the Trans-Coian Imperial Railway again in March 1890, and with the experiences of Gaullica in the colonial wars of the 1880s fresh in the minds of many politicians, Cuvillier was able to successfully argue for the commencement of construction of the Adunis to Mambiza Railway. Survey work began in December 1890, but survey and construction work on the railway would last over three decades until 1922. Although the Hamadan and Beheran portions of the railway were finished relatively quickly by 1900 under the guidance of Cuvillier and his experienced engineers who had worked previously on the Ténéré Railway, work on the Bahian stretches of the railway was far slower.

Native labourers constructing the Baséland stretch of the Trans-Bahian Railway, 1903.

Nicaise Carrel, governor of Baséland from 1881 to 1906, oversaw construction of the line which started in 1899 following the conclusion of survey work in the neighbouring colony of Haute-Gond and was completed by 1905 in six years. By comparison, the Haute-Gond section of the line, which was the longest, took until 1922 to complete, taking over a decade longer than originally planned. Both sections of the line were plagued by difficulties, from the Butchers of the Boual, a pair of man-eating lions that supposedly killed at least thirty black workers in four months from March to July 1911 in Haute-Gond to flesh-eating maggots, dysentry, smallpox and exaustion causing an average death and desertion rate of 150 workers per month. Around 40,000 workers are alledged to have died in the line's construction or have fled into the jungle to escape the harsh conditions over the 22 years it was under construction.

"What it will cost no words can express,
What is its object no brain can suppose,
Where it will start from no one can guess,
Where it is going to nobody knows,
What is the use of it none can conjecture,
What it will carry there’s none can define,
And in spite of Cuvillier’s superior lecture,
It clearly is naught but a lunatic line."

Extract from Jaques Brisson's speech to Le Sénat on 5 July 1911

The railway's construction was an extremely controversial affair in Gaullica, where its repeated cost overruns and failures to meet projected dates of completion frustrated many politicians while reports of the atrocious conditions and abhorrent death toll of the railway provoked a degree of outrage from the populace. By 1911 with the completion of both the eastern and western ends but the lack of a central section and with seemingly no sign of the central section being completed on time, Senator Jaques Brisson famously read a poem to the Colonial Minister in the Senate as a scathing condemnation of the line in an attempt to persuade the Colonial Minister to halt construction on the central portion of the line.

From completion in 1922 until Gaullica's surrender in 1934 in the Great War, the line was operated by the Compagnie du Chemin de fer Impérial (CCI). As part of the peace treaty, Gaullica's colonial empire was largely split between Werania and Estmere. As a key part of the colonial infrastructure, the CCI was formed into the Joint Imperial Railway Company (JIRC), with half of the company owned by each of the Weranian and Estmerish governments although partial ownership was sold to private investors.

The section of the line that passed through East Riziland was nationalised by Vudzijena Nhema in 1957 to block exports from the white-ruled Federation of Obergond from using the railway. The East Riziland Rail Company controlled the eastern-most part of the line until the Garamburan War of Independence in 1969, after which the line came under the control of the privately-owned Compagnie du Chemin de Garamboure. The line is operational and in good condition, but is not linked to the rest of the line due to the ongoing conflict with the Kulo State.

The east-central section of the line remained under the control of the JIRC under the Weranian colony of Obergond from 1935 until 1953, the Federation of Obergond from 1953 to 1960 and the Federation of Yemet from 1960 until 1963 when it was nationalised under the Minen- und Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft Yemet (MEGY) which owns this section of the line to the present day. The line suffered extensive damage during the Yemeti War of Independence from 1946 to 1963 which was only partially repaired by the outbreak of the First Yemeti Civil War in 1970, in which it suffered extensive damage, and the line remains in an extremely poor condition to the present day, with only limited sections operational.

The central section of the line through Behera was operated by the JIRC under the Sultanate of Behera until 1960, when after the October Revolution and the formation of the Socialist Republic of Behera in which the Beheran parts of the line were nationalised. It remains in good condition.

The western section of the line through Tsabara was operated by the JIRC under the Estmerish mandate until independence, and was nationalised in 1950 under the Communal Republic of Tsabara as the Pan-Tsabaran Railway (PTR). The PTR was later privatised under the Karim-Yadin government in 1988 and remains in private ownership. The railway is in good condition in government-held territory, but much of the eastern part of the railway is not in operation due to the ongoing Tsabaran Civil War and its current condition is unknown.

Southern/Mabifian Spur Line

A planned second route was conceived by the governor of xx, in the late 1910s while the main line of the railway was nearing completion. Survey work was completed, but construction was initially delayed by the outbreak of the Great War. After Gaullican victories in Bahia, large numbers of prisoners of war were captured and forced to work on constructing the line from the capital of Behera, Amassine to the Mabifian coast at Bertholdsville (now Ouagedji) which was finished by the war's end. After the end of the war, the line was given to the JIRC. The Mabifian section of the line was nationalised under the Mabifian Democratic Republic in 1944, while the Beheran section was nationalised in 1960 following the declaration of the Socialist Republic of Behera. The Mabifian section of the line was badly damaged in the Mabifian civil war in the 1970s and remains in a poor but operational condition to the present day, while the Beheran section remains in good condition.

Lehir Spur Line

The Lehir Spur Line was the last part of the railway constructed, being planned under the CCI in 1925 but construction was delayed until the end of the Great War. The JIRC commenced construction soon after the end of the Great War in 1936 with support from the Weranian government and the colonial government of Obergond and branched off from the main Adunis to Mambiza line at Toroge, from where it extended northwards to Debre Marqos (now Lehir). Consruction was finished in 1944. The railway was put the control of the JIRC and remained so under the Weranian colony of Obergond, the Federation of Obergond and the Federation of Yemet until 1963 when it was nationalised under the Minen- und Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft Yemet (MEGY) which owns this section of the line to the present day. The line is operational but is in poor condition.