Seven years after the Pioneer Column outspanned their ox wagons at Fort Salisbury. Rhodesia’s first rail link with the outside world reached Bulawayo, nearly five hundred kilometres to the west.
Stretching like an umbilical cord across the vast African landscape, the line brought succour to an infant country still struggling to offset the effects of early setbacks. One of these was rinderpest which almost exterminated cattle herds and made draught oxen virtually unobtainable. Transport costs had risen to Rh$400 a tonne and there was no guarantee of delivery. The economy was stagnating and investors were becoming increasingly wary.
Such was the position in 1896 when Rhodes sent for George Pauling, a railway contractor with experience in several countries. Pauling undertook to complete the remaining 644 kilometres of line from Mafeking in the northern Cape to Bulawayo in 400 days.
True to his word he completed the job at a cost of $4 330 a kilometre, to reach Bulawayo in October, 1897.
The Beira-Umtali link was started in 1892 and the 350 kilometres line only completed in 1898. The entire line ran through tropical lowveld in which malaria and floods proved to be a constant hazard. In the first two years sixty percent of the workers died of malaria.
One story has it that every white man had to supply details for his gravestone when he started working on the line. If he lived out his contract he ceremoniously smashed the stone with a hammer.
One of the grimmer stories. probably apocryphal, is that of the lion which killed and devoured one of the construction workers. His colleagues soon tracked down and shot the lion. In the absence of a body, they decided to give the lion a Christian burial.
Up to September 1927, the whole system was operated by the Mashonaland Railways Company under the title Beira and Mashonaland and Rhodesian Railways, but as of October 1, 1927, the Rhodesia Railways Company became the working company.
- On 1 April 1947, the Rhodesian government acquired the assets of the Rhodesia Railways Limited. The railway undertaking became a statutory body known as the Rhodesia Railways on 1 November 1949.
- On 1 July 1967 the rail network was split at the Victoria Falls Bridge with Zambia Railways taking over the northern railway system and Rhodesia Railways the southern one.
- On 1 June 1979 the title of Rhodesia Railways changed to Zimbabwe Rhodesia Railways and finally to National Railways of Zimbabwe on 1 May 1980 after the nation attained its independence.
Hudswell Clarke Works No 1627 RR 1 Rhodesia 0-6-0T Rhodesia Railways, Mashonaland and Rhodesia Railways Gauge 3ft 6in
Hudswell Clarke Works No 1523 RR 2 Winston Churchill 0-6-0T Rhodesia Railways, Mashonaland and Rhodesia Railways Gauge 3ft 6in
Neilson Reid Works No 5799 – RR 19Class 6A RR 19 4-8-2T Rhodesia Railways, Zambia Railways & National Railways of Zimbabwe Gauge 3ft 6in
Manning Wardle Works No 1159 Small Class 7 MR 7 Jack Tar 0-6-0T Mashonaland Railway, Rhodesia Railways, Zambia Railways & National Railways of Zimbabwe Gauge 3ft 6in
North British Locomotive Company Works No 16173 – RR 43 Class 7 BR 7-8, IMR 110, MR 11 & RR 1-6 & 8-50 4-8-0 Rhodesia Railways, Imperial Military Railway, Mashonaland Railways, Rhodesia Railways Northern Ext, Rhodesia Railways & South African Railways Gauge 3ft 6in
North British Locomotive Company Works No 21478 – RR 115 Class 9 80-97 & 105-122 4-8-0 Rhodesia Railways, Zambia Railways & National Railways of Zimbabwe Gauge 3ft 6in
North British Locomotive Company Works No 19996 – RR 98 Class 10 98-102, 153-159 & 241-246 4-8-0 Rhodesia Railways, Zambia Railways & National Railways of Zimbabwe Gauge 3ft 6in
North British Locomotive Company Works No 23391 – RR 190 Class 12 172-214 & 247-258 4-8-2 Rhodesia Railways, Zambia Railways & National Railways of Zimbabwe Gauge 3ft 6in
Beyer Peacock Works No 6510 – RR 215 & 508 Class 14 215-220, 231-240 & 500-507 2-6-2+2-6-2 Rhodesia Railways & National Railways of Zimbabwe Gauge 3ft 6in
Preserved British Steam Locomotives 