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According to Royal Arsenal History: “The Suakin-Berber railway in Sudan was a short-lived military project that never reached completion. Its construction began in February 1885, being intended to provide a connection between Berber on the River Nile and Suakin on the Red Sea littoral for the rapid deployment of troops and military equipment in Britain’s involvement in the Mahdist war. In May 1885, after barely three of months of work during which only 20 of the intended 280 miles of track had been laid, at a cost approaching £1 million, Britain suspended its war with the Mahdi, pulled out of the Sudan and terminated the Suakin-Berber railway. The railway track was brought back and used in the Royal Arsenal.” And hence this area of the Royal Arsenal was known as Berber. The name would have had another meaning, commemorating the ill-fated General Charles George Gordon’s mission in Sudan to evacuate Egyptians in 1883. Sudan was under Egyptian rule at the time and Egypt was a British protectorate. Gordon stopped at Berber to address an assembly of tribal chiefs before heading to Khartoum. There he decided to disobey his orders to remove the garrison and civilians instead tried to defend the city from the on coming Mahdist forces, who were trying to throw off Egyptian rule. Gordon’s aggressive policies won favour among the British public but were not supported by William Gladstone’s government. He was killed when Khartoum was overrun by the Sudanise January 26, 1885.
