RAILWAYS AND LABOR MIGRATION TO THE RAND MINES - CONSTRAINTS AND SIGNIFICANCE

From the start of the twentieth century, southern African railways con veyed vast numbers of miners to and from the Rand gold mines in a flui d and contested political and economic setting. The need for a large, continually replenished and low-cost workforce was met by tapping new and distant labour pools. Railways mobilised miners by offering relati vely inexpensive, quick, long-distance mass transport. They also curta iled desertion and exhaustion associated with walking. Yet the interes ts of state-owned railways and mining capital were not completely harm onious. The contribution of trains to migrancy was limited by the geog raphy of a railway network built for other purposes, by geopolitical r estrictions on recruiting, by complex and discriminatory tariffs, and by the inefficiency and disunity of railway operations. In the 1930s t he reach of railways was enhanced by flexible road transport; thereaft er, non-rail modes of transport operated by and for mine-labour agenci es, conveyed an increasing share of the stabilising mine workforce. Ra ilways facilitated massive migrancy but might have been even more effe ctive in a better orchestrated and narrower economy. Essential in the first twenty years of industrialised gold mining, railways first entre nched and then prolonged migrancy. Railways were also significant in t hat they did more than temporarily relocate inert labourers: migration by train was, in addition, a socially and symbolically charged episod e.