Gordon Risley Hearn

Gordon Risley Hearn, Sir (1871-1953) Knight, Colonel and antiquary

Railway Achievements

• 1920-26 Khyber Railway survey and construction

In the 2007 book "The Khyber Pass: A History of Empire and Invasion" the author Paddy Docherty writes on p.215:-

'Military men had for many years desired a rail link to the furthest point of the frotier, and the difficulties of supplying and reiforcing British forces operating inside the pass in 1919 turned minds once again towards a railway to the Afgan border. For a generation it had been considered impossible to force a passage through the broken mountains and sheer cliffs, but a masterful survey by Lieutenant-Colonel Gordon Hearn - later Sir Gordon - damolished this myth a construction began in 1920. The railway had been extended to Jamrud in 1901; that the final thirty miles to the Afgan frontier took six years to lay speaks of the tremendous difficulties facing the engineers.'