-----------------+---------------+------------------- | 2 ft. GAUGE. | 3 ft. 6 in. GAUGE. RAILWAY. | Miles. | Miles. -----------------+---------------+------------------- Northern | 121 | 119½ Otavi | 425 | -- Southern | -- | 340½ North-to-South | -- | 317 -----------------+---------------+------------------- Total | 546 | 777 -----------------+---------------+------------------- Granting that the Northern Railway was needed to afford a means of communication between Swakopmund and the capital of the colony, and that the original purpose of the Otavi line was to provide an outlet for the copper obtained from the mines in that district, it is, nevertheless, the fact that the Southern and the North-to-South lines were designed to serve what were mainly or exclusively strategical purposes. When the building of the first section of the Southern line--from Lüderitzbucht to Aus--was under consideration in the Reichstag, one of the members of that body, Herr Lattmann, recommended that the vote should be passed without being referred to a committee; and in support of his recommendation he said:-- This way of passing the vote would be of particular importance for the whole nation, since the railway would not then have to be regarded from the point of view of provisioning our troops, or with regard to the financially remunerative character of the colony, but because a much more serious question lies behind it, namely, what significance has the railway in the event of complications between Germany and other nations? Yes, this railway can be employed for other purposes than for transport from the coast to the interior; our troops can be easily conveyed by it from the interior to the coast and thence to other places. If, for example, a war had broken out with England we could send them into Cape Colony. From Aus the line was extended in 1908 to Keetmanshoop, a distance inland of 230 miles from Lüderitzbucht. Situate in the _Bezirk_ (district) of South-West Africa nearest to Cape Province, Keetmanshoop, with the railway as a source of supply from the chief harbour of the colony, developed into the leading military station of German South-West Africa.