After leaving the coast the railway makes practically a continuous and steady climb to a maximum height of some 5,218 feet in the course of its 360 miles. Notwithstanding this extreme difference in altitude, it was found possible to keep the banks easy, the sharpest gradient being 1 in 50. The country traversed is most inhospitable, the first 145 miles being through a wild desert, and wide stretches of scrub-covered country broken with kopjes. Extensive bridging was found necessary to carry the track across gullies and rivulets, there being in all 110 of these structures. They are built throughout of steel, the deckplate girder type being the most generally favoured, and the most important work of this class has a length of 333 feet, built up in five spans. The curves were kept as easy as possible, the standard radius being about 500 feet. Here and there, however, owing to the cramped conditions of the route open to the track, it was found requisite to reduce the radius to some 270 feet in order to avoid heavy and expensive cutting through rocks and hills. Some idea of the extent to which the engineers were delayed by their repeated differences with the Italian workmen may be gathered from the fact that although 23 months were occupied in carrying the rails from Swakopmund to Omaruru, a matter of 145 miles, the second section, from the latter point to Tsumeb, the present terminus, a matter of 215 miles, required but another year. When the railway was rushed onwards from Omaruru, although the country to be crossed was somewhat easier from the physical point of view, and lent itself to more rapid construction, acceleration was attributable in the main to the ample supply of labour available and absence of trouble with the workmen engaged.