[imagesource:wikicommons]

Everyone was quick to ridicule Cyril Ramaphosa in 2019 when he painted a picture of a South Africa where smart cities were connected by high-speed trains, but the truth is we already had a high-speed rail (HSR) service 40 years ago.

To be designated a high-speed rail, a railway line must be capable of carrying trains at speeds over 200km/h, and in 1980 South Africa achieved those speeds with several ‘experimental locomotives’.

Dr Herbert Scheffel of South African Railways (SAR) played an important role in South Africa’s HSR advances.
He began by experimenting with self-steering bogies, which are the structures beneath a waggon, coach, or locomotive connected by bearings. These minimised flange wear on cargo waggons in the 1970s while also allowing for HSR passenger train testing.

In 1978, a Series 4 locomotive designated E1525 was modified with re-geared traction motors, ‘Scheffel bogies’, and an aerodynamic nose cone on one end. With these modifications, the locomotive reached a speed of 245 km/h on October 31, 1978, when driving a modified suburban coach on a piece of rail between Westonaria and Midway.

Two years later, in November 1980, the E1525 locomotive was once again employed to test the British Rail-Brecknell Willis single-arm high-speed pantograph. Pantographs are elements of electric trains that connect them to the overhead electrical cable – known as the catenary.

The pantographs were being examined for use on Class 6E1 locomotives because they could support speeds of over 145km/h on a catenary that was normally only capable of handling speeds of up to 80km/h.

On a 10-kilometer section of straight rail between Rosslyn and De Wildt, the pantograph experiments achieved a speed of 201 kilometres per hour.

The first test still stands as an ‘unbeaten narrow gauge world speed record on 1,067mm Cape gauge’. Cape gauge was used in many former British colonies.

Following these remarkable feats, the HSR service between Johannesburg and Pretoria, dubbed the MetroBlitz, was launched in 1984. The MetroBlitz locomotives were built and delivered to SAR by Union Carriage & Wagon in Nigel and fitted with electrical equipment supplied by General Electric.

The MetroBlitz ran the 69.4km route between Pretoria and Johannesburg via Germiston in roughly 42–44 minutes, with a top speed of 160km/h.

According to an article in MyBroadband, one of the first passengers on the MetroBlitz was railroad writer Bruno Martin, who described the rail service as “the entry into a new era for rail transport in South Africa”.

“The fully air-conditioned coaches are each fitted with 60 aircraft-type seats in a chequered red/grey material and the floor is covered with plush red carpeting throughout.”

“The livery of the Metroblitz is striking, to say the least – starting with a broad red band, then narrower yellow band below the window level, thereafter dark grey and followed by a yellow and red band above the windows.”

Unfortunately, the MetroBlitz only operated for a year before shutting down due to ‘significant infrastructure costs, the need to accommodate the schedules of slower train services on the same tracks, and stiff competition from other modes of transportation in the region’.

The speedy locomotives were eventually incorporated into the Blue Train service between Pretoria and Kimberley. Four of the five locomotives were sold on auction by Transnet Freight Rail and scrapped, while one was stored at Koedoespoort by the Transnet Heritage Foundation.

Today, the only passenger rail service that can be compared with the MetroBlitz is the Gautrain, which clocks in at a speed of 160km/h.

Cyril’s supercities and high-speed trains are not that far-fetched, the cadres just need to be kicked off the train first.

[source:mybroadband]