Permanent Way, The Story of the Kenya and Uganda Railway, being the Official History of the Development of the Transport System in Kenya and Uganda.
Published by East African Railways and Harbours, Nairobi, Kenya,1949, hardcover,publisher's original green cloth,gilt lettering on spine and gilt design on front board, illustrated, index, 582 pages, 21 cms x 26 cms x 4.8 cms, top RH cover corner bumped, date of publication written in on title page, minor coffee coloured stain on pages 86-87, no dust jacket, otherwise condition: very good.
18 plates with monochrome photographs. 2 beautifully coloured fold-out maps within, showing 1. East Africa in 1892 with the proposed Railway & 2. East Africa in 1949 showing the Principal Land & Water Communications with finished Railways and Railways under construction.
Part I: East Africa before the Building of the Railway - 'Spheres of Influence' - The Advance to Uganda - Design for a Railway and the Retention of Uganda / Part II: The Building of the Railway - From Mombasa to Nairobi - From Nairobi to the Lake / Part III: The Building of a Colony - Sir Percy Girouard and the Second Move of the Maasai - The First German War, 1914-19 / Part IV: Between Two German Wars - The Great Depression and Years of Argument, 1929-39 / Part V: The Second German War . and After etc.
The book is the official history of the development of the railway, ports and inland waterways in Kenya and Uganda. It is "a record of human endeavour; not only of physical endurance, but also of the effort necessary to convince Parliament at the end of the last century of the necessity to open the country by the building of the railway, also of the endeavour of developing the railway, once it had been built, into an efficient transport system designed to serve the best interests of the people of East Africa."