Rhodesia Railways Magazine - August 1973

A few items of interest taken from this magazine. Hope you enjoy them?

The new water treatment plant takes shape at Mpopoma near Bulawayo.

RHODESIA RAILWAYS' new motive power depot at Mpopoma, near Bulawayo, is to be equipped with a water treatment plant which will be among the most advanced in Southern Africa.

Effluents from the washing of locomotives and the flushing out of radiators will be mechanically and chemically treated before the water is allowed to drain into the main sewer system.

The plant, covering an area of 1 600 m2, will cost R$50 000 to construct and will treat water at the rate of 66 000 litres a day.

Waste water from the depot's cleaning areas will be channelled into two parallel concrete chambers where deposits of oil and grease are first removed by skimming. It will then pass into flocculation tanks for treatment with sodium aluminate and aluminium sulphate for the removal of soluble oils. This process will be speed up by agitating the water with compressed air. After settling, any remaining soluble substances can be drawn off from the bottom of the tanks. Other

solvents will be added as required to neutralise detergents and chemicals used in the radiators of diesel engines.

When free of pollutants the water will drain into the municipal sewer system, but provision is made to reclaim the water for further use within the depot, if necessary.

The Railways anti-pollution committee, appointed in January, 1972, and comprising technical staff from the various engineering branches, has made considerable strides in cleaning up effluents from Railways workplaces. Water reclamation is however not new to Rhodesia Railways, who for many years have operated a treatment plant at both the Salisbury and Bulawayo steam locomotive power depots.

Though not as sophisticated in design, the principle is the same and the "treated water is pumped into overhead tanks for re-use as boiler feed water.

End

Ready For Anything

(Above) This railway truck carried the latest in heavy guns — Boer war vintage. Judging from it's appearance one wonders who was in the greatest danger — those manning the gun or those on the receiving end!

End

50 years back

New Works During 1923-24

'"THE principal New Works in hand and proposed for execution during the current financial year are as follows:—

AT BEIRA — Re-construction of the section of the new wharf, 160 feet in length, which collapsed on 18th May, 1922, is in hand. The piers are now being lighted by electricity and equipped with electric capstans. Two additional 3-ton cranes are also being installed.

In order to cut out some of the present handling of chrome ore over the piers and avoid a considerable amount of shunting, a narrow gauge system has been laid down from the chrome dumps to the piers. The ore will be loaded either by hand or by means of a grab from the dumps into coco pans which will, for the present, be propelled by hand directly on to the piers, where the body of the coco pans will be lifted by the cranes and the contents dumped into lighters.

Siding facilities are being increased by the construction of three additional loops in the Marshalling Yard, and a dead-end siding adjoining the T.Z.R. Dock. The copper dumps are being extended by the addition of two dead-end sidings.

Goods shed accommodation is being increased by the extension of No. 4 shed by 150 feet, which will add an area of 7,500 sq. feet.

End

Extracted and recompiled, by Eddy Norris, from a publication which was made available to ORAFs by Diarmid Smith
Thank you Diarmid.

Rhodesia Railways Magazine, August 1973

The recompilation was done for no or intended financial gain but rather to record the memories of Rhodesia.

Thanks to

Paul Norris for the ISP sponsorship.

Paul Mroz for the image hosting sponsorship.

Robb Ellis for his assistance.

Should you wish to contact Eddy Norris please mail me on orafs11@gmail.com