From: Biniam Haile \(SWE\) (eritrea.lave@comhem.se)
Date: Fri Feb 26 2010 - 10:29:00 EST
Jennie reaches destination after epic train journey
Published Date: 25 February 2010
By Peter Kay
MANY men are interested in railways, and some have written books about
them, but Jennie Street has gone down a virtually unknown line.
A woman writing about a publication about trains? And about the rail
network in a country in the Horn of Africa?
Jennie renowned for her enthusiastic rallying of the community in
Totley, where she lives has spent the past ten years compiling Red Sea
Railway.
She decided to write the history of the Eritrean Railway not because she
is a railway enthusiast but because she was inspired by how the country
pulled together to get the trains going again after a devastating war
with Ethiopia.
Jennie lived and worked in Eritrea before and after Liberation in 1991
and started the book to record some of the stories of the men who worked
on the line.
Some of them were in their 70s and 80s, helping to reconstruct 117km of
line that had been destroyed in the war, which saw sabotage and ambushes
and rails used in the trenches on the frontline.
A new government wanted the railway to be a symbol of self reliance,
even rejecting the chance of using European funds. So there was a
stirring story to be told.
Some rail experts, though, told Jenny in no uncertain terms that a woman
without any technical knowledge should not even attempt such a book.
Publication has confounded the doubters and the reaction has been
positive, she said. "It's been wonderful. I was very nervous about how
the railway fraternity would view it.
"One man from Germany told me I shouldn't even try to write a book
about railways. But I have had some very good comments from senior
people in the railway world, including a professor of transport history
in Italy."
It's an offshoot from Jennie's usual world of working with Totley
Residents Association, organising the Totley Show and opening her garden
in The Grove to the public as part of the National Gardens Scheme.
Her literary subject was bound to raise eyebrows. "Women tend not to be
the ones interested in railways and they don't tend to write books about
them. It's the little boys who become train spotters."
Yet she persuaded the general manager of the Eritrean railway to be her
co-author and their collaboration across continents has paid off.
Jennie has presented all the 'nuts and bolts' of locomotives, track,
rolling stock and gauges, aided by the generous railway enthusiasts from
across the world, "who probably thought they were coming to the aid of a
damsel in distress."
The book involved extensive research in archives in Khartoum, Asmara,
Rome and London, interviews with elderly Eritreans and searching the
internet for photographic and documentary items.
With her husband, John Beazer, teaching himself book layout skills,
Jennie, aged 58, ended up publishing the book herself. As a Sheffielder
Jennie asked Starprint, of Abbeydale Road, to print the book.
Comprising 374 pages, 385 photographs, 71 illustrations and 19 maps and
weighing in at 1.3kgs, it has proved a mighty undertaking.
But she stuck at it.
"There were days when I didn't open a file and days when it was very
intense," said Jennie, who is a voluntary learning advisor with the
south west Sheffield community assembly and is currently trying to set
up a horticulture project in Bolsover.
"Ten years is a long time. I don't think my friends thought I would do
it
"
Red Sea Railway costs £29.99. Contact Jennie on 236 2302 or see the
website
<http://www.sheffieldtelegraph.co.uk/headlines/www.redsearailway.co.uk>
www.redsearailway.co.uk
http://www.sheffieldtelegraph.co.uk/headlines/Jennie-reaches-destination
-after-epic.6103470.jp
<http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/Eritrean_Railway_-_T
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