Witbank
When the railway from Pretoria to Lourenço Marques was built in 1894 it passed close to Witbank (1 622ms) and a full-scale coal industry developed. This principally mining town is centrally situated in a coal-mining belt where 45% of South Africa's coal is produced.
The Witbank coal seams have an average width of 6 metres, are practically horizontal and lie no deeper than 300 metres below the surface. There are 22 mines in the vicinity and the reserves of high quality steam coal found here should last for the next 500 years.
The Witbank area has a special if unheralded significance for Anglophiles since it was here that a young Winston Churchill, as an escaping British prisoner-of-war, took refuge in a mineshaft in December 1900. He later jumped a freight train on the same line on which the "Pride of Africa" travels and made good his escape to Lourenço Marques (now Maputo) in Mozambique.
The Witbank coal seams have an average width of 6 metres, are practically horizontal and lie no deeper than 300 metres below the surface. There are 22 mines in the vicinity and the reserves of high quality steam coal found here should last for the next 500 years.
The Witbank area has a special if unheralded significance for Anglophiles since it was here that a young Winston Churchill, as an escaping British prisoner-of-war, took refuge in a mineshaft in December 1900. He later jumped a freight train on the same line on which the "Pride of Africa" travels and made good his escape to Lourenço Marques (now Maputo) in Mozambique.
Labels: African Collage, Durban Safari, Golf Safari
posted by African Luxury Train Destinations at
5:35 AM
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