When, on the fall of Khartoum in January, 1885, the British Government first decided on an extension of the Nile Valley Railway, they further resolved on the building of a military railway from Suakin to Berber, on the Nile, in order to have a second line of communication available for Lord Wolseley's Army; and an Anglo-Indian force was sent to Suakin, under the command of General Sir Gerald Graham, in order, first, to defeat the Dervishes in the Eastern Sudan, and then to protect the construction of the proposed railway. Such a line would obviously have been of great strategical value to a Nile expeditionary force; but the attempt to build it broke down owing, in part, to the defective nature of the organisation resorted to, though still more to the active opposition of the enemy. Sir Andrew Clarke, Inspector-General of Fortifications, had from the first advocated that the line should be supplied and laid by the military engineering strength then available; but he was over-ruled, and the work was given to an English firm of contractors in the expectation, as Major-General Whitworth Porter tells, in volume two of the "History of the Corps of Royal Engineers," "that the necessary material would be supplied more readily, and in shorter time, through civilian agency." It was, however, decided to send the 10th (Railway) Company of Royal Engineers both to carry out some local works in the neighbourhood of Suakin and to assist the contractors in the longer undertaking; and this military element was strengthened, not only by a force of Indian coolies, but, also, by the addition of thirty-nine members of Engineer Volunteer Corps in England who had enlisted for the campaign, all having had experience in trades qualifying them for railway work.[40] There was thus practically a dual system, workable, in the opinion of Sir Andrew Clarke, "only by a species of compromise which was both unscientific and uneconomical." As for interruptions by the Dervishes, these took the form of constant attacks both on the line under construction and on the workers. Several actions were fought, and at Tofrik, near Suakin, the British sustained a serious loss of life. Posts were erected as the work slowly progressed, and the bullet-proof train mentioned on page 76 was used for patrolling the line at night; but in face of all the difficulties experienced the work was definitely abandoned when only twenty miles of the intended railway had been completed. The troops were recalled in June, 1885, the railway material not used was brought back to England, and a line linking up Suakin (and Port Sudan) with Berber, via Atbara Junction, was not finally opened until 1906. Reverting to the Nile Valley Railway, it is gratifying to be able to say that the success already spoken of as having been attained in this direction was but a prelude to still more important developments that were to follow.