The first segment of the present-day Sudan Railways, from Wadi Halfa to Abu Hamad on the Nile, was also a military undertaking. It was built by the British for use in General Herbert Kitchener's drive against to the Mahdiyah in the late 1890s. The line was pushed to Atbarah on the Nile in 1897 during the campaign and after the defeat of the Mahdiyah in 1898 was continued to Khartoum, which it reached on the last day of 1899.[1] The line was built to 1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in) gauge track specifications, the result apparently of Kitchener's pragmatic use of the rolling stock and rails of that gauge from the old line.