"Our national railway system had many components, with a tangled mix of departments and enterprises, including large state-owned railway companies, railways built by mining companies, urban railways, regional railways, dedicated railways for other types of enterprises, dedicated railways in agricultural areas, and so on."
"In summary, there were countless large and small railways, making management difficult and railway network integration problematic. The national trunk railway network was still manageable, but small railways, direct-line railways, and the like were not closely connected to the trunk lines."
"Mining-area railways were the most typical example. Their construction was constrained by the distribution of resources, especially in the southern and central regions."
"The national trunk railways were the great arteries of the East African Railway Network, while branch lines and other types of railways were the capillaries. East Africa's foremost problem now was that the capillaries did not connect smoothly with the great arteries, resulting in low efficiency in the circulation of blood—that was, the logistics and passenger-flow dispatch involved in economic development."
The problems reported by the Ministry of Railways were all objective facts. In truth, East Africa's railway system was already considered relatively good among those of other countries. The railway management of Europe's major economic powers was the most meticulous, and their network density was also relatively high.
The worst was the United States railway system. Although the United States possessed an enormous number of railways, they were entirely capital-driven. There were more than a thousand railway companies alone, and without a unified, powerful governing body, railway companies large and small fought their own battles with severe consequences.
Yet railways concerned not only economic interests, but also national defense, transportation, society, and other fields. Take European countries such as Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire: they placed emphasis on the military use