Even then, as told by Lieut. Willans, R.E.,[37] who took part in the expedition, the progress made was extremely slow. The rails obtained from different railway companies in India were of five different patterns, of odd lengths, and varying in weight from 30 lb. to 65 lb. a yard. Some of them had been in use many years on the harbour works at Karachi, had been taken up and laid down several times, and had, also, been bent to fit sharp curves or cut to suit the original line. Some single-flanged rails had been fitted in the Government workshops at Bombay with fish-plates and bolts; but the holes in the plates and rails were not at uniform distances, and the bolts fitted the holes so tightly as to allow of no play. Then, when the rails arrived, no spikes came with them, and without spikes they could not be laid. When the spikes followed, it was found that the augurs for boring holes in the sleepers had been left at Bombay, to come on by another ship; though this particular difficulty was met by the artisans of the 23rd Punjab Pioneer Regiment making augurs for themselves. If the rails gave much trouble--and even when they had been laid it was no unusual thing for them to break between two sleepers and throw the engine off the line--the locomotives and rolling stock caused still more. Six locomotives were shipped from Bombay; but, owing to the great difficulty in landing and the labour involved in putting them together, only four were used. Of these, one was a tank engine which, although just turned out from the railway workshops at Bombay, required new driving wheels after it had been running a fortnight. Another came with worn-out boiler tubes, and these had to be replaced at Zoulla. The two others, tank engines with only four wheels each, had previously seen many years' service at Karachi. All the engines were very light, weighing with coal and water from 16 to 20 tons each. The best of them could do no more than draw fifteen small loaded trucks up an incline of one in sixty. The sixty wagons sent were ordinary trolleys having no springs, no spring buffers and no grease boxes. Their axle-boxes were of cast iron, and wore out within a fortnight, owing to the driving sand. As the railway came into use, every truck was loaded to its fullest capacity, and the combination of this weight with the jarring and oscillation on a very rough line led either to the breaking of the coupling chains or to the coupling bars being pulled from the wagons at starting. When fresh coupling chains were asked for it was found that the boxes containing them had either been left behind at Bombay or were buried beneath several hundred tons of other supplies on board ship. At least forty per cent. of the trucks were either constantly under repair or had to be put aside as unfit for use. In May a number of open wagons with springs and spring buffers arrived from Bombay. Some of these were converted into passenger carriages.