 The building of the railway and pipeline had not been greatly affected by the fighting on 23 April and by 29 April , four trains a day were running regularly to the railhead , manned by No. 276 Railway Company , and the main line to Romani was opened on 19 May . A second standard gauge railway line from Romani to Mahamdiyah on the Mediterranean coast was completed by 9 June . But conditions on the ground were extreme ; after the middle of May and in particular from mid June to the end of July , the heat in the Sinai Desert ranged from extreme to fierce when temperatures could be expected to be in the region of 123 ° F ( 51 ° C ) in the shade . The terrible heat was not as bad as the <unk> dust storms which blow once every 50 days for between a few hours and several days ; the air is turned into a haze of floating sand particles flung about by a strong , hot <unk> wind . 
