Malawi trip report and photos

[John Ashworth]

Posted on the East_Africa_Steam Yahoo group at http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/E ... ssage/3235

We spent a week here and covered the entire passenger system which is worked by one set of stock over 5 days and (for us) one locomotive - 520 an MLW MX615 (using the rare 8 cylinder ALCO 251 engine). Stock was 6 or 7 third class coaches and 3 or 4 freight wagons and was mainly absolutely wedged. The timetable is available at http://www.cear.mw/timetable.pdf.

The only event of note was the Makhanga to Blantyre train on Sunday 2nd September - to start with the engine derailed on the triangle at Sankhulani and we lost about an hour and a half whilst the crew re-railed it using a couple of bricks and lots of skill and experience, however another 10km later coaches 4 and 5 derailed at approx 40kph and thankfully (we were in coach 6) stayed upright with an emergency brake application. After a bit of head scratching by the crew it was decided to split the train and the front half (with us on the engine) went forward to Sandama where the coaches were dumped in the siding and they could make phone contact with HQ. The loco then returned to the derailed coaches and after rerailing assistance arrived by road, it got back to Blantyre at 0545 the next morning - 24 hours after departing Makhanga. Meanwhile we were lucky enough to catch a lift in the only car in the village of Sandama (belonging to an immigration official on his weekly visit who by sheer luck was going back to Blantyre himself) for 3.5 hours of the most appalling roads either of us have ever had the misfortune to use!

We also saw 510 and 504 in action on freight traffic along with D127 (a GE) of CDN Mozambique in action on cross border freight which they work as far as Liwonde. The ex-Taiwanese EMD G12s were not seen in traffic and two examples were just visible in the yard at Limbe out of service - apparently they are under-powered and not vacuum braked.

Photos are at http://www.flickr.com/photos/youthwith/ ... 583791034/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/50125487@N ... 588088834/ and a video of the MX615 thrash is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B8eNQ63 ... e=youtu.be.