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hide options panel16A Class Garratt
10 photos
updated : 2020-12-09
The 16A Class 2-8-2+2-8-2 Garratt was a post war development of the earlier 16th Class, designed for freight haulage on lines laid with 60lb rail. They had small wheels, making them good for slogging up steep gradients. A total of 30 were built in 1952-53 and a few shunting around Bulawayo until recently.
Heany Jn - West Nicholson
10 photos
updated : 2020-12-09
The 170km branch from Heany Junction, east of Bulawayo, reached West Nicholson in 1905. The line was built to serve gold mines but most traffic was limestone from Colleen Bawn to a cement works near Bulawayo. In the 1980s 16A Class Garratts worked most trains, with 14As appearing less often.
CFM 951 Class Garratt
4 photos
updated : 2022-08-25
CFM locos weren't regular visitors to Zimbabwe but in the late 1980s the US Government funded the refurbishment of around 10 CFM locos at ZECO in Bulawayo. We were lucky enough to be at Sawmills when No. 960 made its first test run after being outshopped. Haine St Pierre built 12 951 Class in 1952.
20/20A Class Garratt
8 photos
updated : 2022-08-25
The 20th Class 4-8-2+2-8-4 Garratts were neither the biggest nor the most powerful locomotives in Africa but they weren't far off on either count. A total of 61 were built in 1954-58 for heavy freight work and they could still be found hard at work between Bulawayo and Victoria Falls into the early 1990s.
Bulawayo - Dett
11 photos
updated : 2022-08-25
Bulawayo - Dett is the southern section of the long main line to Zambia via Victoria Falls. Traffic was fairly heavy with coal from Wankie and Zambian copper providing much of the traffic. The line was still largely steam worked by the larger 15th and 20th class Garratts until the early 1990s.
Almost twenty years of UN sanctions kept steam alive in Rhodesia through the 1960s and 1970s and, by the time the country entered the 1980s as the newly independent Zimbabwe, it still had a fleet of Garratts, over 80 of which were in the process of being refurbished at the ZECO works in Bulawayo.
Steam remained the mainstay of operations on the lines to Victoria Falls and West Nicholson until the early 1990s, making Zimbabwe a prime destination for railway photographers.
