NZASM 100

4to; original mustard boards, lettered in gilt on spine and upper cover; laminated dustwrapper; endpaper map; pp. (iv) + 265 + (vii); maps; plans; historical photographs. Dustwrapper sunned on spine panel. Very good condition.

"NZASM 100 maps the valiant efforts of the first railway company to establish an extensive railway network in an isolated country in Africa. At the close of the nineteenth century when the Boers of the 'Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek' (ZAR) were still living in a pre-industrial timeframe and had never seen a train, a railway company, the 'Nederlandsche Zuid-Afrikaansche Spoorweg Maatschappij' (NZASM), laid the foundation of a modern transport system. Together with the gold-mining industry in the Eastern Transvaal and on the Witwatersrand the railways inaugurated the industrial revolution in a country managed by an agrarian people. This book encapsulates the rich technical, political and above all, the architectural history of the NZASM for the first time. Supported by vast documentary evidence it traces the origins of the ZAR's desire for an independent railway link with the coast - Delagoa Bay (Maputo) - and the struggle of brave engineers against the odds of the landscape and climate in the sub-tropical Lowveld."