Belgian Congo 257

     Issued by the Belgian Congo in 1948 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the inauguration of the Matadi to Leopoldville railroad line this stamp has a small map in the lower right-hand corner that shows the route of that line as a dark line. It took eight years to build the track in 1890-1898, and cost the lives of 1800 blacks and 132 whites.
     The engine (and possibly the rest of the train as well) has no wheels! Irvine and Seshold, Errors in Postage Stamp Design, p. 99, write, "the locomotive on a 2f.50 1948 stamp of the Belgian Congo apparently has no wheels at all, for the whole rail surface is visible. Jean-Pierre Mangin, Errors on Stamps, I:166, writes, "The wheels of the locomotive are missing."