Richards Bay

(28.10.06)

Being the end of the famous coal line, Richards Bay has been on my to-do list for many years. Given its sheer size, finding the complex was not a problem. A public road overpass allowed for a glimpse on the yard with some quite impressive background. Spoornet 35653 just rolled towards the port facilities:

With the yard and the electrified main line (on the far left of the picture) at my feet, I thought it would be easy to get decent pictures of (1) one of the heavy coal trains, and (2) some shunting action in the yard. For a long time however, nothing happened. 35653 started to slowly pull a train of empty waggons through what proved to be a loading terminal - which puzzled and still puzzles me a lot: I understand that coal is exported via Richards Bay. Is the place also used as a hub to redistribute coal from the 'big' trains of the coal line to more 'handy' trains which carry coal to other parts of the country? Anyway, after a boring 90 minutes Spoornet 35641+35673 volunteered to make their way towards the port - appearing rather tiny in front of the big bunkers:

On the left side of the picture, Spoornet 35653 can be seen with her train being loaded:

After almost two hours on a noisy and somewhat uncomfortable brigde, I agreed to leave the place - being a big disapointed that I had missed the big coal trains. Is train frequency on the coal line slower than I expected? Or did I just happen to catch a 'maintainance day' with traffic being held at stations? I will surely appreciate any further information here.

Ralph Timmermann, 6. June 2007

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