- Online Chat & Dating in Greytown | Meet Men & Women in Greytown, South Africa | Badoo
- Vacation rentals in Greytown
- D'Vigne Lodge B&B Reviews, Greytown
- Time Zone Converter (Time Difference Calculator)
- Attractions IN Greytown
Online Chat & Dating in Greytown | Meet Men & Women in Greytown, South Africa | Badoo
Two and a half minutes awaiting entrance to the yard at Mpolweni was followed by eight minutes for safe-working as a southbound goods hauled by GMAM was crossed then a five minutes shunt with three vehicles coming off. The trolley is one of the smaller types used by Permanent Way Inspectors. Shortly after a frosty sunrise in June this GMA was coming through Mpolweni, heading for the Victoria yard with a down freight.
A down train bringing a curiously mixed load up the short, steep grade into Mpolweni, August He further confirms that the steel girder portion of the bridge was originally part of the Inchanga Viaduct and that in earlier times there was a siding by the name of Mersey. Another angle on the same bridge with the same train from photo 25, April April In , when Brian Couzens took this photo of a GCA poised under the water column at New Hanover, these little garratts were still in abundance on the Greytown line. While their main purpose was to work the "Bloudraad" 45 pound rails of the Kranskop, Mount Alida, Bruyn's Hill and Glenside lines, they were regularly called on to assist with local goods movements on the main Greytown line, usually to and from boiler washouts at Masons Mill.
They would soon be shutting off for the descent to the Mersey bridge. The GF and GMA involved in the crossing scene in photo 36 were now leaving New Hanover, skirting the local wattle pulpwood yard along the way. When this photo was taken late in , the first diesels had already made significant inroads into the motive power position on the Greytown line, but almost as fast as the diesels arrived, so the GMAs were being transferred away from Mason's Mill, to replace aging GEAs and other older locomotives being withdrawn at various depots around the country. This meant that the vintage and still reliable GFs remained a critical part of the Mason's Mill roster.
After having completed some shunting at New Hanover, this loco on the daily except Sundays Victoria - Greytown up gets underway in typically exuberant GF fashion as it heads for its next stop at Schroeders. After taking water at Umvoti River Bridge, the train must stop at the halt to allow the school children to detrain in safety.
Another interesting aside from this area is the now almost forgotten hamlet of York. The early York villagers, Haidee Settlers and their descendants from Yorkshire in England, were reputedly fanatically religious, shunning all temptations such as alcohol and other negative influences from the outside world - they even had a chapel designed as a scaled-down version of a church in Yorkshire. It is claimed that when the news that a railway was being surveyed between Pietermaritzburg and Greytown reached them, the citizens of York were adamant that the railway, with all the potential evils that it represented, would not be allowed to pass through their town.
They reportedly campaigned so vigorously that the surveyors found another route for the railway, which took it through New Hanover instead of York That's the Mhlalane spruit bridge in the background, which features in the next photo being crossed by up empties. No date or engine numbers recorded. Schroeders was a favourite haunt of the late Dusty Durrant.
More than most, he appreciated steam-busy places and for better than a decade this one provided more than most. GF at the south end of Schroeders on 29 January under the coaling facility straddling yard tracks which was used for refueling locomotives while attached to their trains. Upon arrival at Schroeders, up Victoria-Greytown had its locomotive replaced by GF while the train was sitting on the main line outside station limits.
Also seen at Schroeders at this time was a goods hauled by GF presumably off the Bruyn's Hill branch.
Vacation rentals in Greytown
The coaling appliance in action. Schroeders was probably unique in Natal in that it had a cocopan-operated coal stage set up directly over the running lines, enabling locos to be refueled, clean fires and take water whilst still attached to their train. However, when double-heading it was usually quicker to uncouple one engine and allow it to clean fire and take water separately while its counterpart was being coaled.
The sub-depot at Schroeders with several GFs on shed. Early in a GF approaches Schroeders from the east with the daily goods, down, off the mile long Bruyn's Hill branch. Although some sections of this line and the nearby Glenside branch were still laid with 45lb rail, due to a shortage of GCAs a concession was made to allow the GFs officially restricted to 60lb rail to work these branches.
It would appear to have been a sound decision as the more powerful GFs worked these lines for many years without trouble until the Class 35s with a marginally lighter axle-loading and, of course, no hammer-blow took over in The fact that General Electric Class diesels had begun making an unwelcome from a steam enthusiast point of view appearance on the Greytown line as a stop-gap measure until the new GM Class s arrived could well have increased the urgency of capturing these scenes - these branch line diesels would be able to take over the lightly-laid sub-branches from the GFs, where Class 34s had not been permitted.
The predominance of German names in this area Wartburg, New Hanover, Schroeders etc confirms that this part of Natal was home to a sizeable community of German settlers who arrived to farm in the area from the s. A curiosity on the station is the departmental caravan parked next to the toilet on the platform Regarding this dreadful accident which happened on the Bruyn's Hill branch c we have this close to first-hand account from Stuart Grossert:.
All three crew members were charged with criminal negligence and received jail time - very sad. Apart from this it was very reliable. Train up, the 6. The guard is busy preparing to shunt out the loaded timber wagons for the return trip on down, scheduled to depart at The year heralded the demise of big steam on the Greytown line. By the end of the year it was becoming virtually impossible to find any through trains not worked by diesels. Here a pair of General Motors units enter Schroeders with a down goods late in , the front wagons possibly loaded with export bagged charcoal from the Sevenoaks area - a product that would soon lend itself ideally to containerisation Unlike the hard-working steamers, diesels did not need to have coal, water and ash and even lubrication dealt with here, making the usual extended stop superfluous.
T he same train entering Schroeders yard, where a triple set of 34s working in multiple not triple-headed as they are all controlled by a single driver are waiting to cross. This was super-power on the Greytown line and must have made the Operating Office staff rub their hands in glee as the number of trains required to be pushed through the restrictive "sausage machine" that the busy Greytown line had become in steam days diminished appreciably.
But the tenure of the 34s at Mason's Mill was to be relatively short.
At least there are still a couple of wily GFs lurking in the background in Schroeders yard! Even though they had to stop for a service at Schroeders, at least they looked good, and how. A great pity the farmers didn't care much for how they looked, they just wanted their produce to get to market as quickly as possible. The previous photo showed raw stalk cane destined for the sugar mill at Jaagbaan and fertilizer for farms along the Fawnleas branch.
This one depicts gondolas with bagasse mulch for the fields of those same farmers and empty molasses tankers for Jaagbaan mill. Observant readers may have noticed this is the same train coming around the curve at Cramond in No Bertram Lewis rode this train many times and fortunately it just lasted into the Kodachrome II era.
D'Vigne Lodge B&B Reviews, Greytown
Pulpwood off the Fawnleas branch its terminus was actually at Glenside, about 3 miles further on being assembled into one load for the main line. This was before the direct link onto the branch, about half-a-mile south of Dalton station, was built in The released GOs were all transferred to the Eastern Transvaal System where they operated out of Belfast, junction for the Steelpoort line.
The inadequacy of the GOs for this line will be described further when we tell you about that extraordinarily busy branch and its chrome ore traffic.
- hookup free Malmesbury South Africa?
- Sunrise Guesthouse;
- central speed dating Balfour South Africa.
- Navigation menu.
No , having crossed GO , was about to set off for the north with a rather light load of four empty ES trucks. A short while later set out from Dalton for Victoria yard in Pietermaritzburg. The growth in traffic between the previous photos and April , when this photo was made, was phenomenal.
By August it was rare to find less than two trains in Dalton. The station foreman at Dalton has closed the crossing gate and flagged the GF on up, the daily Victoria - Greytown wayside, into the station. The three wagons of sugar cane would be destined either for the local mill at Dalton, or the large, new Noodsberg mill nearby on the Glenside branch, which can be seen turning out to the left. GCA underway northbound after crossing the down goods depicted in photos 61 and In the far background, GO was about to leave with its southbound pulpwood load.
Traffic to and from the large Noodsberg sugar mill at Jaagbaan on the Glenside branch had increased to such an extent by that it was deemed necessary to provide a direct access to the branch from the Pietermaritzburg direction just south of Dalton station. This section of the branch line had already been relaid with 80lb rail, allowing GMAM locos to run right to the mill and the Working Time Book had up to five double-headed trains a day booked directly from the main line to the mill, to deliver sugar cane as well as to clear processed sugar and treacle molasses.
With the requisite "all clear" no doubt having been given by the platelayer in charge of the work gang, as well as a green flag from the waiting station foreman, the two garratts work in concert to pick up their substantial load on the steeply-graded final approach into Dalton station. Despite the massive increase in traffic on this route, no station beyond Victoria was ever considered worthy of signalling.
The siding on the left leads to the Dalton sugar mill. As you can see, the short section of the Glenside branch between Jaagbaan and Dalton was laid with heavy rail to accommodate the GMAs. To make sure he recorded the action on both branches before the dreaded diesels descended upon them, Brian also followed the daily exc Sundays goods from Dalton to Glenside and return, this time in the hands of GF "Magdalena".
Time Zone Converter (Time Difference Calculator)
In this photo at Fawnleas in February he captured the real essence of a rural wayside train and station in the steam era; the engine of down drawn up next to the old but perfectly maintained wood-and-iron station building; the station gardens with scarcely a leaf out of place; someone looking like the tranship porter leaning against the goods shed, next to some parcels that a local farmer has entrusted to the Railway administration to deliver for him, and which will shortly be loaded into the four-wheeler tranship truck or perhaps into the baggage compartment of the little V-7 guard's van once the train has pulled forward.
Between Greytown and Dalton there were eight private sidings serving sugar cane, wattle and pulpwood plantations. Each generated substantial but erratic traffic which made it hard to efficiently plan locomotive and train workings. After some energetic shunting they left again, southbound, with an interesting way of doubling the hill from the Kamanzi river to Ravensworth see next photo.
With ten B-bogies of stalk cane, GF in picture was banked up the hill from Kamanzi to Ravensworth by The two engines then came back light to Harden Heights to pick up ten more loads from the private siding, plus a guards van, before departing southbound again, doubleheaded this time.
Attractions IN Greytown
After picking up the other ten loads at Ravensworth the whole caravan headed off down the hill to Dalton and Jaagbaan. In the Spring of a pair of GMAs on a down goods shut off steam as they pull into Sevenoaks station after the sustained 5-mile climb from the Umvoti River.
Double-headed GMA working would rapidly decline during the latter half of as diesels took over most of the through loads. When dieselization occurred, the cowls were removed leaving a rather truncated chimney visible as the chimney had been shortened due to the tight clearances. Of the 53 GMAs seen at Masons Mill in late , 27 had truncated chimneys sounds more civilised than 'circumcised'. It is believed that the LMS in UK had a policy of one third locomotives in service, one third in workshops and one third awaiting workshops, so seeing 88 GMAs working was a good result.
GMA and GMAM designs were identical, the different capacities being adjusted to suit by fitting or removing suitable plates in the coal and water spaces. The GMA had 11tonscwt of coal plus gallons of water for a maximum axle load of 15tons-7cwt while the GMAM had 14tons of coal, gallons of water for a maximum axle load of 15tonscwt.
The only known external difference was the class letter on the number plate!
- full hook up campsites in Standerton South Africa?
- Been to Tranquili-tea? Share your experiences!.
- free dating sites city in Midstream South Africa.
- lesbian dating app near Saldanha South Africa;
Sometime around June Brian made a visit to the Greytown end of the line on a Saturday morning and couldn't believe his eyes when not two, but three Class GMA's appeared at the front end of a goods train heading up the grade from the Umvoti River to Greytown. Unable to believe his luck at this unique sighting, he followed the train to Greytown, taking photos at every opportunity.
However, upon arrival at Greytown he learned that the situation was not quite as it appeared, which can be corroborated by the photos. It transpired that a GMA on a very short up wayside train had failed en route, and a following GMA double-header had come to the rescue, picking up the stricken Garratt plus its two wagon load the guard's van second behind the locos is the giveaway and hauled them on to Greytown. An indication that all was not well with the third Garratt is that nowhere in any of the photos that Brian took can the engine be seen to be doing any work.
Note also that in order to comply with the then strictly applied load-distribution instruction for bridges, the third garratt had its feeder tank moved to the front before proceeding. This instruction seemed to have been conveniently ignored when the ton Class 34 diesels arrived, as they could quite happily proceed over any bridge in twos or threes without any thought of a spacer wagon!
GF on the outskirts of Greytown at 29 on 30 January Note Greytown's new fuel depot under construction in the left background. You can see the earthworks for the yet-to-be-completed private siding to connect it to the station yard.