Railways Africa

By John Batwell Reefsteamers, Germiston Reefsteamers will be operating their usual special train to the annual Cherry Festival in the eastern OFS during 17-20 November 2011. There will be steam haulage on the Bethlehem-Ficksburg section. Sanrasm, Krugersdorp Sanrasm’s North British-built 4-8-2T (works no 24386/1937), which worked on Douglas Colliery and has been plinthed at Florida [...]

A heavy-haul conference in the Rocky Mountains Your author recently returned from the 2011 International Heavy-Haul Association (IIHA) conference in Calgary, Canada – a vibrant experience that relegates an eight-hour jet lag in a week-long round trip to the background. Regular readers may think that all I do is attend conferences. However, it is only [...]

John Batwell reports on a recent visit…… Forty or so years back, one would have expected to see Transnet Freight Rail’s (TFR) semi-circular-shaped, multi-terraced, 24/7 operational control centre on a black-and-white, visionary television episode of Star Trek! Just over three years ago, the imposing National Command Centre (NCC) in Transnet’s Parktown office block opened – [...]

Who develops next? Railway Corporate Strategy cc is currently preparing a paper for Transport Research Arena 2012 in Athens, with the title European and global urban guided transit: Green and socio-economic fit. Using a database representing 330 cities in 68 countries plus sophisticated statistical techniques, it examines how urban railways (and competitive rubber-tyred modes such [...]

South African photographer Dennis Moore has put out a 120-page, 33cm x 28cm coffee table publication on of the steam locomotives of Zimbabwe. Entitled Zimbabwe Journey, his book is a photographically nostalgic reflection – in both colour and black-and-white – of the Garratts that were instrumental in operating services out of the railway headquarters city, [...]

Repainting of some of the motive power at Sanrasm’s South site has been undertaken, including Wardale-modified class 19D no 2644, class 6 nos 454 and 473, class 16DA no 844 and class 14R no 1705. A number of bigger locos were cut up because – owing either to the degree of damage by vandals or [...]

The author recently attended the 9th World Congress on Railway Research in Lille, France – a memorable experience in many ways. Much more than railway research alone, it offered a few days in Paris – always a pleasant experience that includes good rail-based public transport. The metro was superb, including a trip on rubber-tyred driverless [...]

This is the first in a series of articles explaining the role and mandate of the Railway Safety Regulator (RSR) in the South African rail environment. It highlights the RSR’s key role in standardising safe rail operations in cooperation with neighbouring countries and the Southern African Development Community (Sadac). Prior to 2002, the rail industry [...]

At about 17:50 on 19 May, a Metrorail commuter train from Johannesburg ran past two red signals. It then rear-ended Soweto Business Express #2, which had stopped at a signal between the Mzimhlophe and Phomolong stations in Soweto. Due apparently to the speed at which the collision took place, an incredible number of injuries – [...]

By Jacintha Naidoo, Senior Manager of Safety Standards at South Africa’s Railway Safety Regulator. The South African Bureau of Standards (SABS), on behalf of the Railway Safety Regulator (RSR), has just published a national standard on human factors management. The standard was developed primarily to provide railway operators with the minimum requirements to manage human [...]