ALTHOUGH the first railway in South Africa became operational in 1860 between the Point and the village of Durban, the first harbour engineer, John Milne liked to claim that honour for his wooden rail track laid around the base of the Bluff headland in 1856.
The sandbar at the entrance to the bay posed a hazard to shipping as all too often the depth of water over the bar was insufficient to permit safe entry.
With the arrival of settlers from 1849 and increased economic activity, the need to remedy access to the harbour became a critical issue.
Milne believed, correctly as it turned out, that by narrowing the entrance to the bay by the construction of north and south piers, the natural ebb and flow of the tides would scour the sandbank and produce a deepened channel. To build the piers required, Milne needed suitable stone a large supply of which existed at the base of the Bluff headland.
Until 1854, stone was quarried where West’s railway station stands. Then a more accessible supply was blasted out of the tip of the Bluff headland. To convey the stones to a calm point within the bay from where they could be ferried across for the construction of the north pier, Milne decided to build a rail track.
The rails were made from milkwood trees which were common around the bay. After initial difficulty with those appointed to cut and saw the timber, Charles Gregory and William Hart got the job done and the track was laid. It was placed just two metres above the high water mark and measured 1,6km in length.
Eight wagons were constructed to convey the stone which was cut into blocks roughly 20kgs each in weight. A ‘train’ of four wagons was hauled along the track by a team of eight oxen.
Once a week, a fresh span of oxen was swum across the bay to relieve the others. No mention is made of the fates of the previous teams of oxen.
By the end of 1856 construction of the north pier had reached 137 metres in length. Even in its infant form and without a corresponding south pier, the depth of water over the bar had improved. But Milne’s efforts became frustrated by politics. The new Governor, John Scott was critical of the quality of the Bluff stone and wanted further engineering opinion. Disagreement over expenditure saw Milne dismissed from his post in 1858.
Consequently, Milne’s wooden railway track around the Bluff headland fell into disuse. Early in the 20th century the whaling company built a railway over Milne’s track to transport whale carcasses to its factory on the seaward side of the Bluff.
There is a photograph of Milne’s railway track in Killie Campbell Library. Hugging the base of the bush-covered Bluff just above the water’s edge, that modest wooden rail track constituted the first settler footprint on the Bluff.
[Information derived primarily from Terry Hutson’s 1997 article in Natalia]
