Building the 225-mile long railway from Wadi Halfa to Abu Hamad was a much more ambitious undertaking. General opinion held the construction of such a railway to be impossible, but Kitchener commissioned Percy Girouard, who had worked on the Canadian Pacific Railway to under take the project. Work began on the line on 1 January 1897, but little progress made until the line to Kermah was completed in May, when work began in earnest.