Steam at Hwange Colliery, Zimbabwe July 2001

Trevor Heath was here in July 2001.

Wankie colliery has lifted itself out of its motive power crunch by leasing 15th class Garratt's from NRZ while it overhauls it own fleet. 15th number 12 was performing all of the work during our visit while number 11 fresh from a substantial overhaul was being steam tested in the shed yard. Number 10 was in the works receiving a similar overhaul while leased NRZ number 406 was being held on shed cold but serviceable. This loco has now I understand returned to Bulawayo where the local fans are somewhat disappointed that there will be no more positioning freights to deliver leased loco's to WCC in the near future.

Overhauls are performed on site with help from NRZ personnel from Bulawayo. Wheel sets are sent to Bulawayo for turning. In contrast to Selebi Phikwe in Botswana, Wankie has gravitated towards Garratts from its 19th class which were mostly supplied new in the 1950's and are now pretty much worn out. Two however were in steam during our visit one, number 4 in very poor shape was the "in steam standby loco" while another number 3 was providing a temporary source of steam at the coke plant (while a boiler there is overhauled) complete with a "Rocket" style of tall chimney, a three person crew and no driving wheels.

It is not surprising that Wankie would prefer the Garratt's as one loco can easily haul a load of empties up the grade from Thompson Junction where as the 19th needed two, one pulling and the other pushing. Just one Garratt seems to be able to take care of the workload at the current time. When the second Garratt number 11 is commissioned and the coke plant boiler repaired I doubt the green WCC 19th class will ever work again. Steam will I feel remain here for the foreseeable future because of lack of foreign exchange to buy and maintain diesels and unlike Selebi they have fuel on site.

This shows one 19th as stationary boiler and another as standby...