The Natal Government Railways (NGR) was formed in January 1877 in the Colony of Natal.
In 1877, the Natal Government Railways acquired the Natal Railway Company for the sum of £40,000, gaining the line from the Point to Durban and from Durban to Umgeni. This move, inspired in part by the neighbouring Cape Prime Minister John Molteno's 1873 establishment of the Cape Government Railways, was intended to drive the extension of Natal's railways inland, towards the Drakensberg and eventually the Orange Free State.Bond J.: They were South Africans. London: Oxford University Press. 1956. Chapter 19, The Makers of Railways. The Natal Government Railways also adopted the Cape gauge. The core line went from Durban to Volksrust, but reached Charlestown ( from the border of the South African Republic) in 1891 and was linked to the Witwatersrand in 1895. Other important lines were the one linking with the Orange Free State reaching Harrismith in 1892, as well as the North Coast and South Coast lines. In 1910, the Union of South Africa was formed and in 1912 the NGR combined with the other colonies' railway companies (Cape Government Railways and Central South African Railways) to form the South African Railways and Harbours (SAR & H).
Lines and business history The core line connected Durban to the Witwatersrand and was completed in 1895. There were also lines on the northern and southern coasts. The Orange Free State (OVS) line went over the Drakensberg, connecting Ladysmith to Kroonstad by its completion in 1906. Although more than 80% of the railway was in the OVS, it was built under the auspices of the NGR.
Until Natal gained autonomy in 1893, the long railway from Glencoe to the coal mines of Dundee was the only branch line of the NGR, but when NGR was merged into the broader South African railway network on 1 January 1912, the branch lines occupied 40% of the NGR rail network.
Here is the railway over the years and by the numbers:
Year Average Distance Financial Record (£'000) mi km Income Expenses 1860 2 3 77.5 73.0 1870 6 10 126.3 117.0 1880 95.5 154 582.7 477.1 1889-1890 225 362 1507.8 1393.9 1899-1900 567 912 886.7 1990.5 1909-10 987 1588 4293.7 3530.3
Construction The line from Durban to Pietermaritzburg was already proposed in 1862, but it was not surveyed until 1873. Under Natal Law 4 of 1875, Natal Government Railways (NGR) was authorized to build three lines from the Point Waterfront: one of from Durban to Pietermaritzburg, one along the Natal South Coast to near Isipingo, and one along the North Coast to near Verulam. The Natal colonial government paid for the lines with a £1.2 million loan obtained in London.
Durban to Pietermaritzburg The line to Pietermaritzburg ran through hills that would have made the 4' 8 1⁄2" NRC gauge prohibitively expensive. Therefore, the 3' 6" (1067 mm) Cape gauge was used. Afterwards, the old NRC lines were replaced by ones with the new gauge. The building of the new line between The Point and Umgeni began on 11 May 1878.
The contract with the railway builders specified the minimum radius at and the maximum gradient at 1:30. Construction began on 1 January 1876. On 4 September 1878, the from Durban to Pinetown was operational, and on 1 December 1880, the entire line from Durban to Pietermaritzburg went online. Although the towns were apart, the railway stretched for .After the bridge was built at Inchanga, the final route became a bit shorter than the proposed one. The line climbed from sea level to Richmond Road (931 m above sea level) and then declined to Pietermaritzburg (633 m above sea level). The line followed the contours of the land and there was not one tunnel between the two cities. The current line between the two, by contrast, is long and goes through 15 tunnels.
Pietermaritzburg to Newcastle While the Voortrekkers had mined coal on a small scale, the North Natal coal rush began in earnest when Frederick Noord published his report in 1881. A report by the British Empire (1871) reported that it cost twice as much to transport coal by wagon to Durban as it did to ship it to London. This, together with the opening of the diamond fields in Griqualand West, led the Natal Provincial Council to order the line continued to Newcastle in 1881 with a branch line connecting Natal to the diamond fields through the Drakensberg. After the line reached Ladysmith in 1886, service northward from Pietermaritzburg began. The distance from Pietermaritzburg to Ladysmith is , and the line ranges from its highest point between Mooi River and Estcourt ( above sea level) to the bridge over the Tugela River ( above sea level).
Once the line from Ladysmith to Newcastle () was completed in 1889, coal could finally be transported economically from North Natal to the coast. A branch line () was also built from Glencoe to the coal mine in Dundee.
Connections with the Boer Republics One of the original purposes of the Pietermaritzburg-Ladysmith line was to serve the diamond mines in Griqualand West. The same year the line reached Ladysmith, gold was discovered in the Witwatersrand, and therefore in 1889, it was decided to extend the line from Newcastle to the border of the Transvaal.
On 7 November 1889, after an agreement was reached between the governments of Natal and the Orange Free State, construction began on the line from Ladysmith to Harrismith. The line reached Van Reenen's Pass in 1891, and on 13 July 1892, service from Ladysmith to Harrismith was formally opened by the Governor of Natal and the State President of the Orange Free State. Although it stretched into the Orange River Colony, the entire length of the line () was the property of the NGR. The Free State portion was largely flat (between Van Reenen and Harrismith the line drops ), but in Natal the line climbed over the course of . Three zig zags were made to overcome the harsh terrain of the Drakensberg. Harrismith remained the terminus of the railway until after the Second Boer War. Between 1903 and 1906, the link between Harrismith and Kroonstad was opened in several stages.
After the discovery of gold, there was a race between Cape Colony and Natal to connect the Witwatersrand with the coast. Before the line from Ladysmith to Newcastle was completed, an agreement was signed between the governments of Natal and the ZAR to extend the line from Newcastle to the Rand. The line reached Newcastle on 15 May 1890, and was immediately continued on to Charlestown, the last town in Natal before the ZAR border. The line, which climbed over the from Newcastle to Charlestown, was formally opened by President Paul Kruger of the ZAR and the Governor of Natal on 7 April 1891. Where the line crosses Laing's Nek Pass, a tunnel was built.
For political reasons, the rail line was not connected with the Netherlands–South African Railway Company (NZASM) lines until the NZASM line to Maputo Bay was finished. That line went into service on 1 January 1895. By the terms of an agreement made on 3 February 1894 between the SAR government and NGR, the NGR was to build a link from the Natal-ZAR border to NZASM network. The first half, of from between the border and Heidelberg, Gauteng, opened 27 April 1895; the second opened on 15 November 1895. On 1 December 1895, the branch line between the border and Charlestown opened, followed on 15 December by the branch from Heidelberg to Union Junction, from Germiston.
Coast Line and branch lines When the NGR was founded in 1875, it was authorized to build a line from Durban to Verulam along the northern coast and a line from Durban to Isipingo along the southern coast.
At the time, there was already a line from Durban to Umgeni, but it was in the of the NRC, not the Cape gauge of the NGR. Since that line was already operational, it was retrofitted with a new Cape gauge track in 1877. In 1878, the extension of the North Coast Line to Verulam opened. The South Coast Line began near the Rossburgh station, a depot around from Durban. In 1880, the line to Isipingo opened.
The branch line from Glencoe to Dundee was the only one built in Natal before the colony attained self-government in 1893. Between then and the outbreak of the Second Boer War, the South Coast Line was extended from Isipingo to Park Rynie, a branch line was built along the southern border from the port of Clairwood to Wests, and a branch was built from Thornville Junction to Richmond. Around the same time, the Hullett sugar company extended the North Coast Line from Verulam to the southern bank of the Tugela River. On 25 October 1899, 13 days after the beginning of the Second Boer War, the first of the Pietermaritzburg-Greytown line (from Pietermaritzburg to New Hanover). Shortly after the British took Pretoria, the last from New Hanover to Greytown were completed. During the war, the South Coast Line was extended to North Shepstone on the northern bank of the Umzimkulu River, a distance of around .
In 1896, JL Hullett & Sons bought the Natal-Zululand Company. Although Zululand was merged with the Colony of Natal in 1897, the Natal-Zululand Company continued to own the North Coast Line from Verulam northward, having leased the line to the NGR. On 18 July 1902, the first line opened, going from the Tugela River by way of Empangeni to near the Mhlathuze River. The following year, the line was extended by way of Mtubatuba to near the coal mine in Somkhele. The coal mined there was poor-quality and the mine was never profitable, so the line ran a deficit of £48,917 during its first year of operation. In April 1904, the government of Natal bought the line for £725,000.
Between 1904 and 1909, a link between the Natal portion of the NGR and the CGR lines in the Cape was built through Griqualand West. The line reached Riverside but was never finished.
In 1884, the Nieuwe Republiek was founded by Lucas Johannes Meyer with its capital at Vryheid. In 1888, the Nieuwe Republiek was absorbed into the ZAR, and in 1902 it was annexed by the British and combined with the Natal colony. The area is rich in coal. In April 1901, the Glencoe-Dundee branch line reached the Buffels River - earlier the border of the Nieuwe Republiek. From 1901 to 1909, the branch line was extended through Vryheid to near Hlobane. At the same time, Utrecht was connected with the main line by a branch line.
Narrow-gauge lines During the 19th century, a number of narrow-gauge lines were built in the mountains. As in India and elsewhere, such lines were more financially viable in hilly terrain. Such lines included, for instance, the Ffestiniog Railway in Wales and the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway in India.
In 1899, Hullett & Co. obtained permission from the Natal government to build a private narrow-gauge line from Stanger in the tea plantations to the Kearsney tea factory. The line opened to both freight and passengers on 13 March 1901.
In 1904, there were also narrow-gauge railways built in the Natal countryside. Narrow-gauge railways were cheaper than and could also take sharper turns. The trade-off was that locomotives did not run as efficiently on them and therefore less could be hauled. The first narrow-gauge rail line in rural Natal, the Estcourt-Weenen line, opened in April 1907. The following year, the Ixopo-Stuartstown line opened between Donnybrook (a station on the Natal-Cape Line) and Umzinto (Esperanza, the terminus of a branch off the South Coast Line). The line between Umlaasweg and Mid-Illovo and the line from Port Shepstone to Paddock opened in 1911.
List of lines The NGR lines established by 1 January 1912, are as follows: