Alfred County Railway

Port Shepstone-Harding
NGG16A 155 with freight train in Nqabeni (1991)
Route length:	122 km
Gauge :	610 mm ( 2 foot track )
Maximum slope :	39  ‰
Legend 0.0 Port Shepstone Depot 1.0 Banana Express Station Mbango River Mboyboyi River Izotsha River Oslo Beach Beach terminus 13.0 Izotsha Mangqula Bomela Whitefish Success Plains 39.0 Paddock 514 m Kulwana Mbeni Otterburn Cenam 58.0 Izingolweni 581 m Ridge Booker 75.0 Nqabeni (Antioch) Gindrah Celebeni Hughenden Bongwana Nkondwana River Fingal Shores Hluku Egwapa Wetherby 122.0 Harding 879 m

The Alfred County Railway was a narrow - gauge, single-track railway line in South Africa with a mountain railway character . Over a length of 122 km it connected the coastal town of Port Shepstone with Harding in the mountains of KwaZulu-Natal . The track width was 610 mm. The operation ended in 2006.

history

prehistory

The land between the Umzimkulu and Umtamvuna rivers was originally considered a no-man's-land, surrounded by the areas of the Zulu and Xhosa . After the annexation by the government of Natal in 1866, this area was named Alfred County, named after Prince Alfred , the younger son of the British Queen Victoria . The coastal Cape-gauge railway from Durban reached North Shepstone on the north bank of the Umzimkulu in 1901. Port Shepstone, the end of the line, was opened in 1907 after a river bridge was built.

Planning and construction

In order to economically develop the interior of the country, which until then could only be reached on poor paths on foot or by cart, the construction of a railway line into the mountains was imperative. The basis for the construction of this railway line to Harding was created by the passage of the Alfred County Railway Extension Act No. 6 'from 1909.

Due to the rugged mountainous landscape, a narrow-gauge railway with a gauge of 610 mm was preferred. The construction costs of such a railway were significantly lower compared to the Cape Gauge because it could wind more closely around deep valleys and steep mountains. The Natal Government Railways finally began construction work for track and infrastructure. The narrow-gauge tracks were laid for 6.5 km along the coast. Then the steady ascent into the mountains followed.

business

The Alfred County Railway opened in 1911 with the first 39 km stretch from Port Shepstone to near the farm 'The Paddock' at Murchison Flats. In 1915 the railway reached Izingolweni and in 1917 the entire 122 km line to Harding went into operation.

SAR series NG4 number 10 (around 1911)

The operator of the railway was from the beginning the state railway SAR (South African Railways), into which all South African railway companies, including the Natal Government Railways, were integrated after the establishment of the South African Union in 1910. The farmers could now fall back on a reliable means of transport. Construction timber, acacia bark for tanneries and various agricultural products, especially bananas, were transported.

After the Second World War, the farmers built large sugar cane plantations south of the Umzimkulu . This made sugar cane an additional significant freight item for the railways. During this period there was also a sharp increase in the amount of timber transported. Customers were newly created paper mills on the coast. Freight traffic had reached its peak.

At the beginning of the 1980s there was a well-developed road network, and numerous goods were now transported by truck. Passenger traffic - with the exception of the Banana Express, a tourist offer - no longer took place. Hardly any more investments were made in the rail infrastructure. The narrow-gauge railway into the mountains to Harding became increasingly unreliable and uneconomical. On October 31, 1986 the line to Harding was finally closed - the end seemed to have come.

passenger traffic

In addition to passenger transport to Harding, which was mostly implemented as a mixed train , i.e. in the form of a combined freight and passenger train, Izotsha was an important train station, as it was located on a main road leading to the south. Since there were no continuous coastal roads, many holidaymakers came to Port Shepstone by train, changed there to the narrow-gauge railway, and finally got on the bus in Izotsha, which then took them to Margate or Port Edward.

Locomotives

Wooden train 1992

In the early years, seven small tank locomotives of the NG4 series with a 2'C1 'wheel arrangement, built by the Kerr Stuart locomotive factory in Great Britain, delivered in 1911 and 1913. The trains were mostly pulled by two locomotives. As early as May 1920, much more powerful locomotives of the NGG11 type Garratt were used. These locomotives have proven themselves on the line for several decades.

In the 1970s, the narrow-gauge railway from Port Elizabeth to Avontuur was dieselized. The Garratts of the NGG13 and NGG16 series that had previously been stationed there were then transferred to Port Shepstone and replaced the older locomotives here.

The new Alfred County Railway

ACR freight train with locomotive and intermediate locomotive at Bomela (1991)

In 1986 the Alfred County Railway Committee was founded in Harding with the aim of maintaining the railway. Alan A. Jorgensen, professional photographer, artist and fighter for rail transport, and Charlie P. Lewis, chief engineer at SATS (South African Transport Services), both rail enthusiasts, were in charge. Numerous negotiations with the government followed with the aim of establishing the first privatized public railway line in South Africa. The suggestions were received with goodwill by the local as well as the state. Eventually the Port Shepstone & Alfred County Railway Company Limited, or ACR for short, was established. The concession agreement was signed on December 3, 1987. Just one day later, the Banana Express returned to Izotcha for the first time. The Minister of Transport himself was present at the opening ceremony for the entire route to Harding in July 1988.

In the first six months, the Banana Express carried 20,000 passengers. Freight traffic got rolling again. The main cargo was construction and timber from Harding and products such as manure and cement that went inland. What was new was the replacement of goods wagons with rigid side walls with wagons on which the timber could be loaded across the direction of travel, which enabled goods to be handled much faster. 20-foot standard containers could now also be transported. A major innovation was the modernization of the 60 year old NGG16 Garratts to reduce operating costs. ACR engineer Phil Girdlestone converted two steam locomotives to the GPCS system developed by the Argentine engineer Porta, which resulted in considerable fuel and water savings. Diesel locomotives for shunting work in Port Shepstone were purchased.

In the early 1990s, freight and tourist traffic on the railroad flourished. The steam locomotives of the NGG16 and NGG16A series handled the entire volume of traffic. In 1992 a contract was signed with Spoornet (successor to SATS), on the basis of which from then on the wooden trains were transported by borrowed diesel locomotives of the 91 series . From 1994 onwards, the narrow-gauge wagons with their timber freight were loaded piggyback onto Cape- gauge wagons and transported to the paper mills in Umkomaas , which resulted in further cost reductions.

The end of the train

Due to dumping prices from street competition, the ACR could no longer compete. In 2001 the main transport contract was not renewed. The timber transport switched from rail to road. The problem with the railway was that it had to pay for the maintenance of its route completely itself. The very well developed national road N2 was available for truck traffic ; it only contributed 15% to road maintenance through the tax.

All that remained was the successful tourist traffic to Izochta and Paddock with the Banana Express, which received strong support from the communities along the Hibiscus Coast . In 2004 Spoornet, still owner of track and diesel locomotives, led the Alfred County Railway into liquidation. After the end of operations by the ACR, the Patons Country Narrow Gauge Railway (PCNGR) was granted temporary permission to continue operating the Banana Express. The PCNGR had three steam locomotives available for this. Despite the success of the Banana Express and proposals from the new railway company to reopen the entire line to Harding, Transnet closed operations on April 20, 2006 on the grounds that there was no lease with PCNGR. Further efforts to put the railway back into operation failed.

On June 18, 2008, a severe storm surge hit the Hibiscus Coast. Several sections of the route and railway bridges were badly damaged.

literature

South African Two-Foot Gauge by Hugh Ballantyne, Middleton Press, ISBN 978-1-906008-51-2

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} Guide to the Banana Express, Port Shepstone & Alfred County Railway, POBox 572 Port Shepstone 4240, South Coast Printers, 1988/89
2. ↑ ^{a b} Journal Narrow Gauge World, May / June 2010, pages 22 to 25
3. ↑ The Banana Express has been closed down by Spoornet on Thursday 20 April 2006 ( Memento from October 17, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) The end of the ACR, excerpt from the press report (English)