Re: South African derailment

Wayne Laepple Wrote:
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> I understand there are lots of problems in South
> Africa with people stealing wooden ties, which are
> sold for making furniture or cut up for firewood.
> On lines that are not heavily used, replacing wood
> ties with concrete is not practical. I just wonder
> why a track inspection prior to the run didn't
> occur.

I just assumed these were concrete ties, but now that I know they
are wooden, I suppose it makes more sense to me that these guys would
steal them. When we were in South Africa folks had fires going all the time, and in some places wood was scarce. They may have had better use for the ties than simply firewood.
I suppose this is a secondary line, by today's standards, and thus the lack of use may have left the theives to feel it was easy to steal, which obviously it was.
Also in the last 6-9 months they announced they would not rebuild the George-Knysna line, and permanantly suspended the other train that ran from George to Mosel Bay.
In a slightly related note, was watching the US Open Golf from Peeble Beach, and South African Ernie Els was announced at #1 tee, as being from GEORGE, South Africa. I did not realize he was from George.
Greg Scholl