leratopretorius's Space http://leratopretorius.posterous.com Most recent posts at leratopretorius's Space posterous.com Tue, 11 Dec 2012 09:36:00 -0800 Train travel in South Africa… http://leratopretorius.posterous.com/train-travel-in-south-africa-15556 http://leratopretorius.posterous.com/train-travel-in-south-africa-15556 Contrary to what you may have heard and to what many middle-class South Africans may tell you, taking the train is a remarkably safe, civilised & enjoyable way to travel between cities in South Africa.  In fact, you’d be crazy not to consider it.  There are several completely different train services:
  • Shosholoza Meyl long-distance passenger trains

    Comfortable & amazingly cheap, Shosholoza Meyl long-distance passenger trains link Johannesburg with Cape Town, Durban and Port Elizabeth.  They’re perfectly safe, and one of South Africa’s best-kept secrets, highly recommended by travellers.  The Cape Town to Johannesburg train passes the same wonderful scenery as the megabucks Blue Train, but costs only 430-670 Rand (£38-£60 or $59-$95) including a bed in a 2-berth or 4-berth sleeper.  Durban to Johannesburg is even cheaper.  Shosholoza Meyl’s Tourist Class trains have modernised sleeping-cars and a restaurant car, a great alternative to flying and missing everything, or being stuck in a bus seat for whole days & nights.  See train times, fares & how to buy tickets.

  • Premier Classe trains

    Luxury on a budget.  Premier Classe trains link Cape Town & Johannesburg twice a week for R2,500 (£208 or $320) including exclusive use of a cosy private sleeper and all meals & afternoon tea in the elegant restaurant car as you pass the fabulous South African scenery.  There’s a spacious lounge-bar car too.  Premier Classe also runs from Johannesburg to Durban.  Highly recommended by travellers, who give Premier Classe rave reviews.  See train times, fares & how to buy tickets.

  • The Blue Train  Cape Town to Pretoria…

    A world-famous luxury train from Cape Town to Pretoria once or twice a week.  It costs from 10,120 Rand (£895 or $1,300) one-way including meals, wine and even cigars.  Worth it if you have the money.  See train times, fares & how to buy tickets.

  • Gautrain linking Jo’burg, Pretoria & Jo’burg airport… 

    Gautrain is the brand-new safe and modern electric suburban train service around Johannesburg.  The Airport Line links Jo’burg’s O.R. Tambo international airport with Sandton.  The North-South Line links Park Station in central Johannesburg (used by Shosholoza Meyl and Premier Classe long distance trains) with Sandton and Pretoria.

Metro suburban trains

Suburban (‘Metro’) trains around Johannesburg & Pretoria are not safe (which is why some South Africans will mistakenly tell you that all South African trains are unsafe), but those around Cape Town can be used if you’re reasonably careful to travel from Cape Town to Stellenbosch, Paarl & Simonstown.  

http://www.seat61.com/SouthAfrica.htm

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Tue, 11 Dec 2012 09:33:00 -0800 Untitled http://leratopretorius.posterous.com/171469588 http://leratopretorius.posterous.com/171469588
SERVICES
Rail construction in progress

Polyzomba Rail Contractors offers a range of services, including turnkey solutions and the construction and maintenance of rail and related services.

Our range of services include :

Civil Works:

  • stormwater drainage structures;
  • earthworks;
  • rail track formation;
  • fencing;
  • building structures;

Rail Trackwork:

  • turnout replacement, incl. VAE 1 : 20, 60kg/m, New Generation Swingnose Sets;
  • track welding using electrothermit processes;
  • rail handling, new and re-usable;
  • sleeper and fastening replacement;
  • rail repairs, including skidmarks;
  • general track maintenance works, including inspections, localised geometry corrections & spot tamping;

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]]>
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Mon, 03 Dec 2012 09:06:00 -0800 Polyzomba Rail Contractors- Services: http://leratopretorius.posterous.com/polyzomba-rail-contractors-services http://leratopretorius.posterous.com/polyzomba-rail-contractors-services

Rail construction in progress

Polyzomba Rail Contractors offers a range of services, including turnkey solutions and the construction and maintenance of rail and related services.

Our range of services include :

Civil Works:

  • stormwater drainage structures;
  • earthworks;
  • rail track formation;
  • fencing;
  • building structures;

Rail Trackwork:

  • turnout replacement, incl. VAE 1 : 20, 60kg/m, New Generation Swingnose Sets;
  • track welding using electrothermit processes;
  • rail handling, new and re-usable;
  • sleeper and fastening replacement;
  • rail repairs, including skidmarks;
  • general track maintenance works, including inspections, localised geometry corrections & spot tamping;

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
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Mon, 03 Dec 2012 09:04:00 -0800 Train travel in South Africa… http://leratopretorius.posterous.com/train-travel-in-south-africa http://leratopretorius.posterous.com/train-travel-in-south-africa

Contrary to what you may have heard and to what many middle-class South Africans may tell you, taking the train is a remarkably safe, civilised & enjoyable way to travel between cities in South Africa.  In fact, you’d be crazy not to consider it.  There are several completely different train services:

  • Shosholoza Meyl long-distance passenger trains

    Comfortable & amazingly cheap, Shosholoza Meyl long-distance passenger trains link Johannesburg with Cape Town, Durban and Port Elizabeth.  They’re perfectly safe, and one of South Africa’s best-kept secrets, highly recommended by travellers.  The Cape Town to Johannesburg train passes the same wonderful scenery as the megabucks Blue Train, but costs only 430-670 Rand (£38-£60 or $59-$95) including a bed in a 2-berth or 4-berth sleeper.  Durban to Johannesburg is even cheaper.  Shosholoza Meyl’s Tourist Class trains have modernised sleeping-cars and a restaurant car, a great alternative to flying and missing everything, or being stuck in a bus seat for whole days & nights.  See train times, fares & how to buy tickets.

  • Premier Classe trains

    Luxury on a budget.  Premier Classe trains link Cape Town & Johannesburg twice a week for R2,500 (£208 or $320) including exclusive use of a cosy private sleeper and all meals & afternoon tea in the elegant restaurant car as you pass the fabulous South African scenery.  There’s a spacious lounge-bar car too.  Premier Classe also runs from Johannesburg to Durban.  Highly recommended by travellers, who give Premier Classe rave reviews.  See train times, fares & how to buy tickets.

  • The Blue Train  Cape Town to Pretoria…

    A world-famous luxury train from Cape Town to Pretoria once or twice a week.  It costs from 10,120 Rand (£895 or $1,300) one-way including meals, wine and even cigars.  Worth it if you have the money.  See train times, fares & how to buy tickets.

  • Gautrain linking Jo’burg, Pretoria & Jo’burg airport… 

    Gautrain is the brand-new safe and modern electric suburban train service around Johannesburg.  The Airport Line links Jo’burg’s O.R. Tambo international airport with Sandton.  The North-South Line links Park Station in central Johannesburg (used by Shosholoza Meyl and Premier Classe long distance trains) with Sandton and Pretoria.

Metro suburban trains

Suburban (‘Metro’) trains around Johannesburg & Pretoria are not safe (which is why some South Africans will mistakenly tell you that all South African trains are unsafe), but those around Cape Town can be used if you’re reasonably careful to travel from Cape Town to Stellenbosch, Paarl & Simonstown.  

http://www.seat61.com/SouthAfrica.htm

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
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Thu, 15 Nov 2012 09:28:00 -0800 Our range of services http://leratopretorius.posterous.com/our-range-of-services http://leratopretorius.posterous.com/our-range-of-services

  

SERVICES

Polyzomba Rail Contractors offers a range of services, including turnkey solutions and the construction and maintenance of rail and related services.

Civil Works:

  • stormwater drainage structures;
  • earthworks;
  • rail track formation;
  • fencing;
  • building structures;

Rail Trackwork:

  • turnout replacement, incl. VAE 1 : 20, 60kg/m, New Generation Swingnose Sets;
  • track welding using electrothermit processes;
  • rail handling, new and re-usable;
  • sleeper and fastening replacement;
  • rail repairs, including skidmarks;
  • general track maintenance works, including inspections, localised geometry corrections & spot tamping;
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

History of the permanent way

The permanent way is the elements of railway lines: generally the pairs of rails typically laid on the sleepers (“ties” in American parlance) embedded in ballast, intended to carry the ordinary trains of a railway. It is described as permanent way because in the earlier days of railway construction, contractors often laid a temporary track to transport spoil and materials about the site; when this work was substantially completed, the temporary track was taken up and the permanent way installed.

Plank ways

The earliest use of a railway track seems to have been in connection with mining in Germany in the 12th century.[2] Mine passageways were usually wet and muddy, and moving barrows of ore along them was extremely difficult. Improvements were made by laying timber planks so that wheeled containers could be dragged along by manpower. By the 16th century the difficulty of keeping the wagon running straight had been solved by having a pin going into a gap between the planks.[3] Georg Agricola describes box-shaped carts, called “dogs”, about half as large again as a wheelbarrow, fitted with a blunt vertical pin and wooden rollers running on iron axles.[4] An Elizabethan era example of this has been discovered at Silvergill in Cumbria, England,[5] and they were probably also in use in the nearby Mines Royal of Grasmere, Newlands and Caldbeck.[6] Where space permitted round-section wooden tracks to take trucks with flanged wheels were installed: a painting from 1544 by the Flemish artist Lucas Gassel shows a coppermine with rails of this type emerging from an adit.[7]

Edged rails

Main article: wagonway

A different system was developed in England, probably in the late 16th century near Broseley for conveying coal from mines, sometimes drift mines down the side of the Severn Gorge to the river Severn. This, probably a rope-hauled incline plane, had existed ‘long before’ 1605.[8] This probably preceded the Wollaton Wagonway of 1604, which has hitherto been regarded as the first.[9][10]

In Shropshire, the gauge was usually narrow, to enable the wagons to be taken underground in drift mines. However by far the greatest number of wagonways were near Newcastle upon Tyne, where a single wagon was hauled by a horse on a wagonway of about the modern standard gauge. These took coal from the pithead down to a staithe where the coal was what was loaded into river boats called keels.[11]

Wear of the timber rails was a problem. They could be renewed by turning them over, but had to be regularly replaced. Sometimes, the rail was made in two parts, so that the top portion could easily be replaced when worn out. The rails were held together by sleepers, covered with ballast to provide a surface for the horse to walk on.

Early iron rails

In 1767, Ketley ironworks began producing cast iron plates, which were fixed to the top of wooden rails with nails, to provide a more durable running surface. This construct was known as strap-iron rail (or strap rail) and was widely used on pre-steam railways in the United States.[12][13] Although relatively cheap and quick to build, they were unsuited to heavy loads and required ‘excessive maintenance’. Train wheels rolling over the spikes loosened them, allowing the rail to break free and curve upwards sufficiently that a car wheel could get beneath it and force the end of the rail up through the floor of the car, writhing and twisting, endangering passengers. These broken rails became known as “snake heads”.[13]

When wrought iron became available, wrought iron plates provided an even more durable surface. The rails had projecting lugs (or ears) with a hole to enable them to be fixed to the underlying wooden rail.

Iron plateways

Section of L-shaped plate rails

A long fish bellied rail supported over several chairs

An alternative, developed by John Curr of Sheffield, the manager of the Duke of Norfolk‘s colliery there. This had a L-shaped rail, so that the flange was on the rail rather than on the wheel. This was also used by Benjamin Outram of Butterley Ironworks and William Jessop (who became a partner in them in 1790). These were used to transport goods for relatively short distances down to canals, though Curr’s ran between the manor colliery and Sheffield town. These rails are referred to as plates, and the railway is sometimes called a plateway. The term “platelayer” also derives from this origin. In theory, the unflanged wheels could have been used on ordinary highways, but in practice this was probably rarely done, because the wagon wheels were so narrow that they would have dug into the road surface.

The system found wide adoption in Britain. Often, the plates were mounted on stone blocks, and sometimes without sleepers, but that was liable to cause the rails to spread apart, increasing the gauge. Railways of this kind were widely used in south Wales. In particular to transport limestone down to ironworks, and then iron from the ironworks to a canal, sometimes several miles away, to take the products to market. The rails were at first made of cast iron in lengths of typically three feet, spanning between stone blocks.[14]

The stone blocks had been assumed to be permanent, but experience quickly showed that they settled and gradually moved under traffic, creating chaotic track geometry and causing derailments. Another problem was that the running surface was liable to become obstructed by stones, displaced from the ballast. An alternative was to use an iron tie bar to keep the rails to the proper gauge, incorporating a shoe in which the rail was fixed.[14]

An example of this was the Penydarren or Merthyr tramway. This was used by Richard Trevithick to demonstrate a pioneer locomotive in 1804, using one of his high pressure steam engines, but the engine was so heavy that it broke many of the rails.

Early edge rails

Cast iron edge rails were used by Thomas Dadford junior when building the Beaufort and Blaenavon lines to the Monmouthshire canal in 1793. These were rectangular, 2½ inches in width with a depth of 3 inches and 4 feet in length, and required flanges on the wagon wheels. The same year Benjamin Outram used edge rails on the Cromford Canal. T-shaped beams were used by William Jessop on theLoughborough-Nanpanton line in 1794, and his sons used I-shaped beams in 1813–15 on a railway from Grantham to Belvoir Castle. Samples of these rails are held in the Science Museum, London.[15]

A short-lived alternative was the fish-bellied profile, first used by Thomas Barnes (1765–1801) at Walker Colliery, near Newcastle in 1798, which enabled rails to have a longer span between blocks. These were T-section edge rails, three feet long and laid on transverse stone sleepers. These were still made of cast iron.[16]

 Post courtesy of Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_way_(history)

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]]>
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Thu, 15 Nov 2012 09:27:00 -0800 Early iron rails http://leratopretorius.posterous.com/early-iron-rails http://leratopretorius.posterous.com/early-iron-rails

In 1767, Ketley ironworks began producing cast iron plates, which were fixed to the top of wooden rails with nails, to provide a more durable running surface. This construct was known as strap-iron rail (or strap rail) and was widely used on pre-steam railways in the United States.[12][13] Although relatively cheap and quick to build, they were unsuited to heavy loads and required ‘excessive maintenance’. Train wheels rolling over the spikes loosened them, allowing the rail to break free and curve upwards sufficiently that a car wheel could get beneath it and force the end of the rail up through the floor of the car, writhing and twisting, endangering passengers. These broken rails became known as “snake heads”.[13]

When wrought iron became available, wrought iron plates provided an even more durable surface. The rails had projecting lugs (or ears) with a hole to enable them to be fixed to the underlying wooden rail.

Iron plateways

Section of L-shaped plate rails

A long fish bellied rail supported over several chairs

An alternative, developed by John Curr of Sheffield, the manager of the Duke of Norfolk‘s colliery there. This had a L-shaped rail, so that the flange was on the rail rather than on the wheel. This was also used by Benjamin Outram of Butterley Ironworks and William Jessop (who became a partner in them in 1790). These were used to transport goods for relatively short distances down to canals, though Curr’s ran between the manor colliery and Sheffield town. These rails are referred to as plates, and the railway is sometimes called a plateway. The term “platelayer” also derives from this origin. In theory, the unflanged wheels could have been used on ordinary highways, but in practice this was probably rarely done, because the wagon wheels were so narrow that they would have dug into the road surface.

The system found wide adoption in Britain. Often, the plates were mounted on stone blocks, and sometimes without sleepers, but that was liable to cause the rails to spread apart, increasing the gauge. Railways of this kind were widely used in south Wales. In particular to transport limestone down to ironworks, and then iron from the ironworks to a canal, sometimes several miles away, to take the products to market. The rails were at first made of cast iron in lengths of typically three feet, spanning between stone blocks.[14]

The stone blocks had been assumed to be permanent, but experience quickly showed that they settled and gradually moved under traffic, creating chaotic track geometry and causing derailments. Another problem was that the running surface was liable to become obstructed by stones, displaced from the ballast. An alternative was to use an iron tie bar to keep the rails to the proper gauge, incorporating a shoe in which the rail was fixed.[14]

An example of this was the Penydarren or Merthyr tramway. This was used by Richard Trevithick to demonstrate a pioneer locomotive in 1804, using one of his high pressure steam engines, but the engine was so heavy that it broke many of the rails.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
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