French Guinea Railway
Length. Estimated Cost. Finance. Present Position
Konakry-Kurussa Viâ Timbo
Length, 550 kilometres, or 342 miles.
Highest estimated cost of line, 80,000 francs per kilometre.
Highest estimated total cost, 44,000,000 francs.
First section, Konakry-Kandia, 150 kilometres, or say 92 miles.
In English figures: Total estimated cost of line, 342 miles long, £1,700,000; or say, roughly, about £5140 per mile.
Results Up to Date, According to the Report of the Governor-General of French West Africa in June Last
The earthworks have reached Kandia at the 149th kilometre (say 92nd mile).
With the exception of two places, between the 27th and 44th kilometre, and between the 90th and 107th kilometre, the earthworks and embankment, &c. are finished and in good condition. One steel bridge thirty-three yards long is already fixed up, and two others are in process of being so. The 34 kilometres which remain are being proceeded with rapidly. Seventeen hundred workmen are continuously engaged thereon. Rails and sleepers are being regularly landed at Konakry. The first locomotive has arrived. By October the rolling-stock complete for the first 150 kilometres, say 92 miles, will have arrived in the Colony.
Finance
For the first section the Colony borrowed from the “Caisse des Retraites,” on its own guarantee, eight million francs (£320,000), at 4 10% in August 1899; and four million francs (£160,000) at 4% from the “Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations” in March 1901. The first loan is to be paid back in forty annual payments, and the second in twenty-five annual payments, the two annuities together amounting to 430,000 francs, or say £17,200.
These loans will be further supplemented by drafts upon the Colony’s local funds.