A look back at Steam in Africa (2007)

[kerrgg]

To all,

A look back at Steam in Africa (2007)
Please note, these Garrets are not Museum Stock, but are in Regular Service still today.

Take a look at my birth/home town "Bulawayo, Zimbabwe" on google earth, which is very much a Railway city,(yeah, it is pretty small, but is a city ), with it's Rail Yards, Locomotive works, Main "Bulawayo" Station, Coal Power Plant, Railway Museum, and Industrial Area, ~ it's a major Destribution Hub (political instability not withstanding), in Southern Africa

(hmm, remembering something that I miss, ~didn't matter where you lived in that town, you could hear the Shift Siren from the main yard & locomotive works blast away, and on cold mornings/nights, the Garret's whistle blast as they made up the cuts. Bulawayo was, at the turn of the last century, the main push/supply for the Cape to Cairo dream.

Hmm, sometimes, I wish to go back in time, just to watch all that heavy Steam Loco activity in those yards. Imagine a scene where you've got 20+ Garrets #15's 4-8-2's shunting and kickin' cars around,

Two to go
http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/up1/125251.jpg


Wonderful Steam Show
http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/up1/125185.jpg


Feeding the Garret
http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/up1/125186.jpg


At night at Hwange Colliery (Not a breath of wind in sight)
http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/up1/125187.jpg

On the curve
http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/up1/125188.jpg


Quietly waiting
http://forums.flightsim.com/vbts/up1/125253.jpg

Gary
"What would Long John Silver’s Parrot do?" ~The Parrot being the true brains of the operation.

[CRQ5508]

very nice pictures! I was watching a movie from TLC's Extreme Machines which had a segment on these locomotives. If I remember correctly, the whole point of them was to provide a lot of power, a lot of speed, and a very low axle rating. I think each axle had something like 16 tons on it a piece; mostly to cope with the very light weight, and aging track. Another thing about these is that these frequently strike elephants. Can you imagine striking something as tall and as wide as what you are driving, that weighs 2 or 3 tons? jeeze. but anyways, these are very interesting locomotives. I can't imagine what it must be like hand shoveling their boilers. then again, they don't look much bigger than say that of an American mikado, or decapod length wise. One question, do these run on wide gauge? cause those boilers look pretty wide.

[kerrgg]

Would you believe ~ Narrow Gauge... and a lot of steep curving grades.

Hence the reason as you said
>"provide a lot of power, a lot of speed, and a very low axle rating"

and not really coz of the "aging track" even though that is certainly a problem in Zimbabwe today, due to lack of maintenance, from "lack of funds" to "poor moral",...

see this discription from:
[http://www.steam.dial.pipex.com/africa.htm#Zimbabwe]
John Curtis reports: "I was in Bulawayo from 7th to 11th January 2006, all the above locomotives were operable. On the 9th 386 was in steam in reserve on shed, 525 was on New Grain, quite a spectacle pushing 6 or 700 tons of bogie trucks up a curving grade on badly misaligned track with plenty of wheel slip and sparks flying from the rails; 416 was shunting freight in the station siding, 424 was station pilot shunting coaches, then Belmont industial area after 612 replaced it at about 4p.m.. On 11th things were much the same except that 525 had gone for boiler washout and been replaced by 519."

Gary
"What would Long John Silver’s Parrot do?" ~The Parrot being the true brains of the operation.