The name's Marval Mhlongo and I'm a railfan from Pretoria, South Africa who loves anything and everything to do with trains and really enjoys trainspotting as a hobby. My channel is dedicated to all things South African trains from Transnet Prasa, and Rovos Rail. All videos and pictures are my own.
Not strange at all. Car carrier trains are very common in South Africa.Transnet just changed the design of the wagons a few years ago.Now the cars inside these trains are no longer visible. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-mjTSXUMTr3Q.htmlsi=1yGk61ooMv_I2g2v
Thanks. That sound is the wheel flanges scraping against the rails due to a lack of lubricant(oil). The 43GE tend to smoke a lot. I'm yet to find out why, but I think it's something to do with the turbo
Thanks, logan. Yeah, having seen your pictures, this was likely one of those loads for vanderbijlpark. I think the mines in Lephalale send coal trains down to Richards Bay as well with the CCR wagons
Nice train, looks like interesting loco class, cheers from croatia! One question, why is there a barbed wire fence, is the railroad privately owned perhaps?
Greetings from South Africa. The 22Es are fantatistic locomotives,I really like them.That fence is there to prevent people from crossing the railway lines unnecessarily. Our railways in South Africa are government owned and operated by either Transnet or Prasa, who are state enterprises
@@marval44039 ok, i see, thank you, ours are too, but i know in some countries here, like bosnia e.g.some parts are owned by the mines and only used for ore transport, like from the mine to the power plant, so i thought private in that sense. Ours are not fenced off, but we still don't have high speed rail, only standard classic one, with speed in best kept parts up to 160 kph. But i live near a branch line, not the branch line, but not the main line either, if you know how croatia looks on the map, i'm in the north near the river drava and hungarian border, and that line goes along the northern border and drava valley to osijek, the capital of slavonia in the east of the country, and it's a single line, not electrified, so mostly up to 100 kph, or lower depending on the state of rail, which is not so bad giving it's very very old, but somewhat kept in order, but i mostly see dmu's old and new, two or three classic pullman style passenger trains that connect osijek and zagreb, and freight trains ofc, lots of grain trains and other bulk cargo, as vukovar on danube is our third port by tonnage alone. Anyways, on the other side of slavonia (that continental part that protrudes toward the east from central croatia, so the southern border of northern croatia, border with bosnia, along river sava, there's a double track electrified, international route, and was the main rail route in the ex yu, there they can go up to 160 in theory, and at least on some parts, those two lines go parallel but along two borders and two rivers, and some branch lines in between ofc. Yeah, but they are not fenced, but they have pretty substantial embankments anyways during their routes, as both are in river valleys that were known for flooding (both rivers get their water from the apls, plus local tributaries ofc), so i'm not used to seeing a railroad basically on level, except entering the towns and such, i know it's normal elsewhere, like in the us and around the world, but here, and europe in general, a lot of railroads are on embankments, as they mostly follow river valleys, anyways sry for the rant, cheers mate! Oh yeah, that i wanted to mention, here at me, and some other parts that are not electrified, like in dalmatia, trains are hauled by classic american emd's, they were built on emd licence in croatia in 70s and 80s, we sold a lot of them last 20 or so years to other countries like morrocco, argentina, israel and so on, refurbished in factory then sold, but refurbished those that we kept too, so european rail fans like to come here for those emd's, they are not often seen in europe, and that sound, anyways cheers mate!
Thank you for the detailed information, I've been busy looking up some of the areas and trains you've mentioned here. it's always nice to see how the railway system in other countries operates. I've've always seen Croatia as one of the most beautiful and scenic countries in the world but have never seen what their railway system looks like. A large part of our railway system in South Africa is electrified. We are the only country in Africa that runs mostly electric trains. Diesel traction is also popular on this side. In fact,we've become more reliant on diesel locomotives these past few years. You see, here in South Africa, we have a big problem when it comes to the theft and vandalism of railway infrastructure, especially the theft of overhead traction equipment. Our electric trains are always hindered by problems. A lot of areas around the country have been forced to use diesel traction as a result, but the problem is there aren't enough diesel locomotives to go around. I'm lucky to see both electric and diesel locomotives in my area, but things are not what they once were 7-10 years ago. Covid 19 really crippled our railway system in more ways than one. The infrastructure was not properly gaurded during peak covid, so now our government has basically had to start from scratch rebuilding most of what was there before. But good progress has been made. My area used to run on a fully electrified railway system, which is split into 3kv sections and 25kv sections. Unfortunately, the 3kv sections were heavily vandalized during covid. They've repaired only the metro lines, but the goods lines in my city now only operate with the diesel traction. Thankfully, the 25kv is alright and still operates with electric locomotives and sometimes diesel as well when needed. We mainly use GM-EMD locomotives. The 44GEs are the only GE locomotives we have running around. The 22E is the only electric locomotive left operating. I used to see at least two other classes of electrics but not anymore. They've been moved to other areas. Cheers from South Africa 🇿🇦
@@marval44039 ok, i see, thank you for your info, and yeah south africa is also one of the pretiest countries there is, it's huge and has such a diversity. But yeah i know you have some problems with electric instalations, i'm glad it's getting resolved. To share some aditional info, yeah for emd's they are domestic here on my line, they were also in zagorje line, that goes from the capital to north-western part, but that's electrified few years ago, so now mostly my line, and dalmatian line for split, the capital of dalmatia, and there most foreign railfans gather because they go to holidays on the coast and the mountains are right behind the coast, and everyone likes to spot trains exiting tunnels or traversing viaducts. The reason that line was never electrified is that it was built long time ago, mostly in the old austrian empire, and the tunnels are too narrow and not high enough to mount electric catenary inside, so that part thru dalmatia is diesel hauled. Interestingly for the electric systems, the other line to south, to rijeka, northern adriatic capital and our main port is electrified, but it was split, the most, like the rest of the country was on ac 25kV, but the lower third or so was on dc 3kV, as it was built during the italian occupation and made in that system, so when we were kids, when going there by train there was a change of loco in zome mountain station, and those italian electric locos from two parts were legendary, downhill to rijeka port is very steep, az is the climb in other direction. Anyways somewhere in the 90s it was all switched to 25 kV ac, but the original italian catenary stayed, just with new wires. Interestingly, slovenia stayed on 3 kV dc, as the entire country was on that system, but luckily modern trains and locos are all multisystem so no problems there. As for electric locos, we had in the yi times, and still use swedish licenced asea locos built in zagreb in končar, a company that built generators, transformators and other industrial electric items, very popular locos, then somewhere in the early 80s they designed a domestic electric loco with tiristors, like it was the peak techmology back then, and they still serve us, i forgot the designation, but everyone calls them brena, after then popular serbian folk singer haha. But yeah, all of our railways is pretty old, only we didn't let it deterriorate too much, granted that company končar builds new emu's, and same looking dmu's for non electrified lines, and completely domestic design and product, as well as trams, they are not maybe siemens top of the line level, but they are very decent, they can't compete with big producers, but we have modern domestic production that some much bigger and richer countries can't brag about, only licence built foreign designs at best. But yeah, we need an overhaul, modern high speed rail, but that's bloody expensive, so the solution is, not for us, but for all eu countries is ofc the eu - joint project on eu level for modern rail connecting entire europe, from the baltic to adriatic and the med, luckilly our government, as bad as it is, it's not completely incompetent, so they manged to negotiate more for us, first ot was just the rijeka line in that eu project, but they managed to put the split line, that non electric one with old tunnels, and this one from zagreb to belgrade and eastern europe, not mine tho, the main one south from me, but at least three main lines will be financed by the eu, the lower level lines we'll have to do with our own finances. Only thing is, you know how it goes with railways, it's expensive and slow, and no way around it, the line from zagreb to north, to budapest, they are modernising it and building the double line, ot was a single before, at least 5 years already, not sure is it over yet or not, yeah nothing comes quick in the railways, maybe in some communist countries where they can take whatever land they want and not go to court, and award the construction job to who ever they want, no bidding, no litigations, then it can be faster, but again not very fast in the end, that's how it is. But the truth is, ever since covid, the eu with that relief took the role of some real organisation that works for its members, that railway financing is one thing, then there's joint fire protection, new canadair planes will be bough by the eufor all mediterranean countries, and they will in return help each other during wildfires - which we already do anyways, that joint fire protection already exists, just we'll get new planes from the eu, specifically croatia will get two new cl 515 canadairs, bigger countries will get more planes ofc, we have 6 now in use, but one is for spare parts, 5 are in service, and 6 air tractors for initial attack, but it's also about organisation, our canadairs are operated by the air force, and two are always ready on the runaway like they are air policing jets, but hence when the fire starts, they can arrive fast and estinguish the fire before it swallowed two neighbouring hills and got completely out of control, so for instance greece has double the number of canadairs from us, probably more than double on paper, but each summer we are sending our planes there to help them with fires, something with their organosation is not very effective, also not the greatest maintenance on planes, a lot not flying for ever reasons, similar in turkey too, a lot of planes on paper, one or two in flying conditions, our planes are also old, as canadairs weren't produced at all for years until recently the new model, well updated model, but you do heavy maintenace during the winter, so you have them ready in summer, but yeah new ones will help everybody here in southern europe. Looks like the eu finally started doing things it was concieved for, beyond just the trade, joint railways, aviation, waterways, defence and so on - most european countries are either too small or too poor or both to be able do do everything, and even the bigger ones can't do everything on their own, and it finally got clear to people governing that together is much easier. Anyways, once again i went into rants, but i like sharing experiences with like minded people, if you can answer me do you use canadair water bombers in south africa? Or maybe helis, or russian berievs? And do you have a lot of wild fores anyways, i know for europe, us, austraila, siberia too, but actually south africa and africa in general is the least in the news regarding big wild fires, so how is the situation there? And ofc cheers mate!
We use Black Hawks by Sikorsky, Huey HU-1s and and MTV. I think that's Russian? You're well informed on South African matters,we have been dealing with a lot of wildfires lately. Some of it is caused by people doing prescribed burning, which can affect train movement. Just this week, a friend of mine witnessed a jet fuel train battling to get through these kinds of fires
There's not that many trains in my area, but at least I'm lucky to see both electric and diesel trains. I just saw a grain train just this week. First one,I've spotted in a very long time
Its very bad to let big diesels idle like that. Liners get glazed and then you have all kinds of problems with gummed up rings, oil consumption. Its just a quick way to ruin an engine. Ships engineer for 35 years.
It's pretty common to see diesel locomotives idling for long periods in my part of the world. The only thing I assumed was bad about it was the fuel consumption and emissions
Thanks. Apparently, that rule was scrapped due to the advancement of air brake technology in the locomotives. This is only when running light locomotives, though
When the engine is running at low speed or when the locomotives have been standing still idling, part of the engine will switch off to conserve fuel. That's when they begin making that thumping sound. That sound is the cylinders
