Cedara tunnel
| Cedara double tunnel | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Official name | Cedara twin tunnels | |||
| use | railroad | |||
| traffic connection | Natal Main Line , section Durban - Pietermaritzburg | |||
| place | Hilton , Worlds View , KwaZulu-Natal | |||
| length | 6023 m | |||
| Number of tubes | 2 | |||
| construction | ||||
| start of building | 1955 | |||
| business | ||||
| operator | Transnet | |||
| release | March 28, 1960 | |||
| location | ||||
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| Coordinates | ||||
| North portal | 29 ° 32 ′ 7 ″ S , 30 ° 16 ′ 23 ″ E | |||
| South portal | 29 ° 34 ′ 56 ″ S , 30 ° 18 ′ 16 ″ E | |||
Map with all coordinates: The Cedara tunnel or Cedara twin tunnel , English Cedara twin tunnels , is a 6 km long railway tunnel on the Natal Main Line in South Africa , which was the longest railway tunnel in South Africa when it opened in 1960.
history
The Cedara Tunnel is part of the expansion of the Boughton – Cedara section to double lanes , which began in April 1955 , with a new route with fewer bends and less incline than the old route from 1916, which was often buried by landslides. It shortens the track length between Pietermaritzburg and Cedara by 6.8 km and made the two train stations Teteluku and Ketelfontein superfluous.
The construction of the tunnel was made simultaneously from both sides, costing 4.4 million pounds . Alternating layers of dolerite and sandstone with shale and loam inclusions had to be passed through, whereby 367,000 m³ of excavated material had to be removed and 84,000 m³ of concrete had to be added for the lining. The construction site employed up to 1,000 workers at times. On July 17, 1958, the west bore was penetrated, and the east bore on November 21, 1958, whereby the drives each met with a deviation of a few centimeters. On March 28, 1960 the tunnels were opened to traffic.
Building
The Cedara Tunnel consists of two tubes 30.5 m (100 ft ) apart , each 6023 m long and located on a 20 ‰ slope. They are connected to cross passages every 804 m (½ mi ) for maintenance purposes and for air circulation in the pipes. The cross-section of each tube is a semicircular arc that stands on two perpendicular side walls. The clear height is 5.4 m, the width 4.5 m. The concrete lining is between 30 and 90 cm thick.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b P.G. Alcock: The Hills Above Pietermaritzburg: An Appreciation. May 2014, p. 6 , accessed on March 25, 2016 (English).
- ↑ a b c Heinie Heydenrych, Bruno Martin: The Natal Main Line story . HSRC Publishers, 1992, ISBN 978-0-7969-1151-3 , pp. 131 .