During a period known as the "Scramble for ", in which powers battled to colonise much of Africa during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the idea of a continent-spanning railroad was envisioned among British journalists and businessmen.

The completed railway would have spanned over 10,000 kilometres (just under 6,212 miles) from Cape Town in to Cairo in .

It was meant to be the largest and most important on the continent.

From there, however, the envisioned "Cape to Cairo Railway" was partially built but never finished.

The completed parts have been inoperative for many years as a result of wars and a lack of maintenance.

The original proposal for the railway was made in 1874 by Edwin Arnold, then the editor of The Daily Telegraph, which was a joint sponsor of the expedition by to Africa to discover the course of the Congo River.

Imperialist and entrepreneur Cecil Rhodes was instrumental in securing the southern states of Africa for the British Empire and envisioned a continuous "red line" of British dominions across the continent. He was a controversial figure in his day and .

At the time, rival empires had also envisioned strategies to link their colonies, including to link Senegal and French Somaliland, while leaders considered an Angola to Mozambique railway to link west with the east.

The total cost to build the railway was estimated to be an average of £75 per mile, according to in 1899.

The British had to overcome many obstacles in its construction, including geography and climate. Maps from the time indicate an area of "dense forests with abundant rainfall", in central Africa.

The southern section was completed during British rule before and had an interconnecting system of national railways using the Cape gauge of 1,067 millimetres. Construction began in Cape Town and went parallel to the Great North Road to Kimberley through a part of Botswana to Bulawayo. From this junction, the link proceeded north. The Victoria Falls Bridge was completed in 1905.

The British Empire was politically capable of completing the Cape to Cairo Railway, however, economics, including the Great Depression, prevented its completion before . After the war, the decolonisation of Africa and the establishment of independent countries contributed to the abandonment of the project.

Currently, 3,495 miles out of a total of 6,518 miles are operational, including the south-western section from Cape Town to Bulawayo in Zimbabwe and the north-upper Nile stretch connecting Babanusa to Sennar, Khartoum and Wadi Halfa in .