Devil's Doors and Mai Hental was the most frequently photographed area
on the railway. There are a couple of reasons for this. The
first is that it is very photogenic. The second is that it is very
close to Asmara.
Photo courtesy of Jerry Pry
I am a little confused over some of the place names. Devil's Doors
is consistantly the name of the gap shown on Jerry Pry's picture.
There are other place names that I have a degree of confusion over.
I qoute from Dave Engstrom's translation from Guida dell'Africa Orientali
Italiana:
[from Arboroba] The railway continues South on the left slope of the Mai Henzi Valley, closely following the road to just under the Arballo saddle, which it reaches and crosses by tunnel after a long incline in a lateral valley, then travels much higher in the headlands of the Macalo Valley.It is one of the most interesting points of the line, overlooking a ravine that descends steeply for hundreds of meters, between the ridgeline of Mt. Longo and the highland escarpment, and continuing North toward the Dorfu Valley, at the bottom of which is seen the cultivation of the Rizzi concession,...dominated by Mt. Corumba, elev. 2347 m.
At the Devil’s Doorway, elev. 2300 m, where the railway is crossed by the highway overpass, it returns to the Mai Henzi Valley. The line continues steeply; crosses on a high viaduct the ravine that descends from the heights of Bet Ghirgis, crosses in a short tunnel a spur of red Mt. Debrazie, elev. 2458 m, and reaches (km 113) the highest point of the line, elev. 2411.95 m.
Tom Johnson©1961 Tom Johnson's above picture shows the west side of Mai Henti Valley through just past Devil's Doors. |
Tom Johnson©1961 Here Tom's picture continues from approximately where the west side picture left off and shows the east side of the valley. In the forground is probably tunnel 26k. Shown here are three levels of the line. The forground most (left) is the second layer in the left hand picture. |
Courtesy of Hans van der Splinter and Mebrat Tzehaie
One favorate location for pictures was the four
arch viaduct which is more toward Asmara than Tom's picture.
An anonomous donor has giving me this picture of looking across the
Mai Henti valley. It is taken from the Asmara side of the valley.
The top cut into the mountain is the highway...the violet line on Jim's
map. The lower line is the railway. At the right where the
rail line moves out of view, is the east end of the above segment
of Jim's map.
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