Despite Britain’s totally desperate economic situation after the Second World War, John Strachey, Minister of Food in the newly elected Labour government of 1947 under Clement Atlee, backed a scheme to grow Groundnuts in a sparsely-populated area of Tanganyika! His aim was to help alleviate a world shortage of vegetable oils but it was destined to be a failure which was to cost Britain, even at immediate post-war value, millions of pounds it could not afford! This is the history of a railway from nowhere to nowhere.