Page 33 - KBHA BULLETIN 1

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Thus the start of the fourth section of the line was the turning of the first sod, on 7 November

1889, by the Minister of Public Works, Col. Schermbrucke, at a little ceremony in Kalk Bay. It
was attended by some railway officials and local dignitaries together with a few other invited

guests but not, to his chagrin, the Editor of the Cape Times who vented his displeasure in the

columns of his newspaper and was critical of the fact that the “requisite sod” had been brought
down from Newlands the day before and kept watered overnight.

However, on the day, the Minister duly turned the first sod into a wheelbarrow and trundled it
away down a plank, after which the party adjourned to the nearby King’s Hotel for luncheon and

the inevitable round of speeches, before returning to Cape Town by the 3.40 pm train.

No time was lost in starting on the work which was under the overall control of the Railway’s

Engineer-in-Chief and Mr Noad, the District Engineer. The actual supervision was done by

Engineers Wise and Bishop, while the Clerks of Works were Messrs. Barclay and Picton. The
contractor for the section from Kalk Bay to Fish Hoek was Messrs Wilkinson and Son. The

Government itself built the rest of the line with the exception of a piece in the middle for which

the contractors were Messrs. Storrier and Wheeler.

There was also some controversy when skilled artisans, such as masons, were brought from

overseas to work on the construction, but the answer was that there were not enough such men
available at the Cape if the completion of the line was not to be delayed. As it was, the Minister’s

confident assertion, at the turning of the first ceremony, that the line would be completed in six

months was wildly out.

Between Kalk Bay and Simon's Town there was only one station, indeed really little more than a

halt, at Fish Hoek. This was near the present level-crossing onto the beach and was a wooden
platform on open trestles which allowed the sand to blow straight through beneath it. Drifting

sand was a great problem for many years and a team of labourers was employed to keep the line
clear and to load the unwanted sand onto railway wagons for dumping the banks of the