Loading sand at Maczki-Bór 577-11
"Tamara" TEM2-204 stands at the head of a train being loaded with sand at the massive Maczki-Bór sand quarry near Katowice in the Górny Śląsk (Upper Silesia) region of Poland. The quarry is named after the villages at opposite ends of the quarry - Maczki at the east end and Bór at the west.
This industrial region was once littered with collieries, and since the early 1900s mining subsidence has been a big problem. On the surface, sand is available in large quantities, so the solution to the subsidence was to fill the abandoned mine workings with locally-quarried sand, and in the 1940s and 1950s the sand was also used in construction projects. Pit waste and flyash from power stations was then used to back-fill the quarries, at least in part.
Between 1910 and 1913 two vast sand quarries were developed in this area, and a network of standard gauge railway lines was built to link the sand quarries and the coal mines, mostly independent of the mainline network (although connected to it). Major expansion of the network took place between 1946 and 1970, with some 785mm gauge lines taken over and regauged.
In 1951 Przedsiębiorstwo Materiałów Podsadzkowych Przemysłu Węglowego (PMP-PW) was formed to operate quarries and the railway system, and it also developed some large scale loco maintenance facilities. However, in the early 1990s PMP-PW was split into six smaller companies and privatised; the six initially marketed themselves together as "Inne Koleje" ("Other Railways"), but the collaboration failed and the six "sand railway companies" began to see each other as rivals. This quarry became the property of Kopalnia Piasku Maczki-Bór Sp. z o. o. in 1991; ten years later it was bought by the international Chem Trans Logistik group (CTL, which included the German Rail4Chem freight operator), and was renamed CTL Maczki-Bór SA.
This photo was taken during an official visit to the CTL Maczki-Bór railway system, organised by Along Different Lines as part of its multi-day "A Silesian Sojourn" tour. We'd travelled by coach from our hotel to Bór Górny (about 5km east of central Katowice), where our charter train - TEM2-100 hauling one coach hired for the day from PKP - was waiting. The train took us about 3km east to Bór Dólny, from where we continued on foot along the track into the quarry (about a kilometre) - the track was deemed too ropey for a passenger train!
We were at an intermediate level in the quarry, with the main quarry to our right (going down about 23m, with another 7m of sand below that, we understood), but the higher area to our left (in the picture) also being dug out. After exploring what was going on, TEM2-100 arrived without the coach, we all clambered on board (there were about 50 of us!), and the "Tamara" slowly took us out of the quarry and back to where the passenger coach had been left.
Ex-PKP electric ET21-017 was now attached to the coach for our trip on the double track "main line" of the system, towards Nowy Wirek Colliery, where we stopped beside a signal box bearing the name Maciej. The return was not uneventful, however: the rear bogie of our coach derailed when the badly-maintained track sprung as the train passed over it (the rail temperature was very high), and that was game over for our special train.
Scan from a 35mm Fuji Provia 100F transparency.
To see my non-transport pictures, visit www.flickr.com/photos/137275498@N03/.
Loading sand at Maczki-Bór 577-11
"Tamara" TEM2-204 stands at the head of a train being loaded with sand at the massive Maczki-Bór sand quarry near Katowice in the Górny Śląsk (Upper Silesia) region of Poland. The quarry is named after the villages at opposite ends of the quarry - Maczki at the east end and Bór at the west.
This industrial region was once littered with collieries, and since the early 1900s mining subsidence has been a big problem. On the surface, sand is available in large quantities, so the solution to the subsidence was to fill the abandoned mine workings with locally-quarried sand, and in the 1940s and 1950s the sand was also used in construction projects. Pit waste and flyash from power stations was then used to back-fill the quarries, at least in part.
Between 1910 and 1913 two vast sand quarries were developed in this area, and a network of standard gauge railway lines was built to link the sand quarries and the coal mines, mostly independent of the mainline network (although connected to it). Major expansion of the network took place between 1946 and 1970, with some 785mm gauge lines taken over and regauged.
In 1951 Przedsiębiorstwo Materiałów Podsadzkowych Przemysłu Węglowego (PMP-PW) was formed to operate quarries and the railway system, and it also developed some large scale loco maintenance facilities. However, in the early 1990s PMP-PW was split into six smaller companies and privatised; the six initially marketed themselves together as "Inne Koleje" ("Other Railways"), but the collaboration failed and the six "sand railway companies" began to see each other as rivals. This quarry became the property of Kopalnia Piasku Maczki-Bór Sp. z o. o. in 1991; ten years later it was bought by the international Chem Trans Logistik group (CTL, which included the German Rail4Chem freight operator), and was renamed CTL Maczki-Bór SA.
This photo was taken during an official visit to the CTL Maczki-Bór railway system, organised by Along Different Lines as part of its multi-day "A Silesian Sojourn" tour. We'd travelled by coach from our hotel to Bór Górny (about 5km east of central Katowice), where our charter train - TEM2-100 hauling one coach hired for the day from PKP - was waiting. The train took us about 3km east to Bór Dólny, from where we continued on foot along the track into the quarry (about a kilometre) - the track was deemed too ropey for a passenger train!
We were at an intermediate level in the quarry, with the main quarry to our right (going down about 23m, with another 7m of sand below that, we understood), but the higher area to our left (in the picture) also being dug out. After exploring what was going on, TEM2-100 arrived without the coach, we all clambered on board (there were about 50 of us!), and the "Tamara" slowly took us out of the quarry and back to where the passenger coach had been left.
Ex-PKP electric ET21-017 was now attached to the coach for our trip on the double track "main line" of the system, towards Nowy Wirek Colliery, where we stopped beside a signal box bearing the name Maciej. The return was not uneventful, however: the rear bogie of our coach derailed when the badly-maintained track sprung as the train passed over it (the rail temperature was very high), and that was game over for our special train.
Scan from a 35mm Fuji Provia 100F transparency.
To see my non-transport pictures, visit www.flickr.com/photos/137275498@N03/.