I was tipped of by Skinny that the Flamingo;s had returned to the Salt Pan on the other side of the Southern Dumps.... Yesterday afternoon seemed like the perfect time to take Shadow and head south through the dumps..... each step a memory back to the 70's..... not the same as those years, most of the junk , the castles, tracks , wild horses, cannons, tanks ..... long buried..... the following snaps are all titled and in no particular order and will have no meaning whatsoever to those of you who did not spend your youth building an empire in those grand old dumps....
the one part of the trip which still remains are the chimney stacks that were removed from the power station and dumped here in the late 70's.... as kids, without knowing what we know today, we played on these giant tubes.... fibres blowing in the wind....
There appears to be a top level of ground that has been used to cover all that junk.... to the west towards town garage , a large hole.....
I also saw a speeding ostrich hurtle passed Shadow at an incredible rate of knots...
We found a concorde in the dumps..... this boat seemed well and truly lost...
image071
And i am almost sure those fibres from the chimney was asbestos......
are-you-there
:emot19_2:
msn emoticon (46)
@ Georg, I think you are indeed right, as a 9 year old kid, we did'nt know what it was, we still played with the stuff...... 30 years down the line, I am still healthy..... what does get me..... is that about 12 years ago, the entire dump got covered.... except for those chimneys and a small section next to the gun club......
madashell
You'll be surprised what you find at the old dump site, back beyound the Gun Club. I can remember dumping a few of the smaller gennies from the Power Station back in the early eighties. They were dumped and then quickly buried for some unknown reason.
Clint and I would go ballbearing hunting behind the town garage.... down near Tyre City.....
Was the item in the below pic not taken form the abattoir?
Difficult to say Mike, there was also plenty of material that went missing from the abbatoir
Like Biltong...... image201
Some famous dumps
Just north of town (about a kilometre of so) on the road leading to the old Central Fields there was a sand road to the left that led to the old South Workings which included a number of well-equipped workshops and a cable railway system designed to drag cocopans up a kilometre-long slope from the mine to the screening plant and then gravity-feed them back to the mine.
The workshops, fully fitted with drilling and grinding machines, lathes, work benches, bench vices etc also included inspection pits fitted with power points for checking vehicles. The whole complex was powered by an on-site generator driven by a diesel engine which was a complete unit taken from a scrapped WW2 German U-boat. Such a setup was the accepted make-do-and-mend attitude of the postwar days when there was very little available in the way of equipment or even building material.
The South Works closed about 1950 and became a standard dumping ground for obsolete machinery and other plant. That included the diesel-electric unit, still in pristine condition, plus the entire cable railway system, spares, tools, electric motors ecetera.
Due to the security restrictions, which were still strongly in force when I left Omund in '67, it is unlikely that any of this was removed and most probably it's all still there, waiting for some 25th century archeologist to wonder at the holocaust which destroyed all this industry. My foreman, a helluva nice guy called Fritz Heiser, regarded it as a spare parts store for Siemens-Schukert motors during the years before we replaced everything with the newer squirrel cage motors. I often nipped down there to strip off an item here and there for reuse.
Further on, taking the right fork on the tar-sealed road towards the old Ovambo compound and North Electrical Workshops, there is a screening plant dump on the right just past the old Gemsbok screenplant and workshop. This is the graveyard of a number of old Siemens-Schukert scoops and an immense piece of machinery known as the Sauerman Scraper.
The scraper was a huge steel tower about 40 metres high which moved on caterpillar tracks like a tank. It also had a smaller "slave" tower which stood at some distance and acted as the other end of a gigantic dragline system which used a massive steel bucket to remove the sand overburden from the workings. So huge was that bucket that it was possible to park an entire landrover in it, so it was a substantial piece of equipment.
The main tower was fitted with an engine room which carried a heavy duty compressor for the air operated system and a 600 horse, 1,000 volt electric motor to run the tracks and dragline. On the top, above a dizzy series of access ladders, was a tiny, glass-enclosed operator's cabin with a single seat and a bank of levers.
Operating the big scraper from that height was the equivalent of riding a bucking broncho when the cables heaved and jerked the tower around the sky as they took up the load. Bored sparkies would relieve the routine by scaring the bejeezus out of new Appies by asking them to stand behind the operator's seat and hang on while the sparkie "tested" the electrics after the weekly maintenance check (first locking the cabin door in case the joke went wrong). Too heavy a hand on the controls caused the most alarming swaying so that anyone not hanging on was flung around like a rag doll, myself being the worst offender. At the same time I would scream some such phrase as "jeez, we're going over" and look panic-stricken. It never failed to raise a reaction. I gave up that little game after one white-faced youngster had to be helped down the ladderway and refused ever to go up again.
Sorry, didn't mean to digress, had almost forgotten my evil ways.
When the Scraper passed its use-by date in the early Sixties it was "retired" and was crawled over the desert to a point at the foot of the Gemsbok dump. There both towers were laid flat in line with the dump, together with the huge bucket, and dumping continued. Within a year the dump had advanced to completely cover all trace of this huge machine. This was a popular and easy way of disposing of awkwardly large machines in those days.
Just further north along that same road at the point past the compound on the left of the road (in fact just next to the old North Electrical workshop) is a huge collection of Siemens-Schukert motors and switchgear from the old days of German management when the company used real equipment and not the American crap of later years. All this was dumped in a huge excavation just behind the workshop and covered up.
In fact, almost the entire Gemsbok area between the road and the sea is a graveyard of machinery and old screening plants. It would have required a major earthmoving operation to bury them so I assume most of it is still visible.
Regards,
Bob.
Thanks again Bob, mining history...... I got to thinking about Bob's words.... currently there is a private company removing all scrap from the main scrapyards on the mine... I believe this contract to be worth about 600 million for the mine (income from scrap). I am now wondering how many of these scrapyards they might have missed, due to the sand covering large machines, as was the practice back in the day..... perhaps a good few millions worth?
idontknow
Hi Bob
The rail line and plant was that not just south of the tank farm about 5 km's, maybe got a few photo's of the stuff always wonderd were it was used and when?
more
Spot on, Alfred. Your pics definitely show the old South Works, though sadly changed since I was last there. They have obviously been either heavily cannibalised for building material or else just vandalised, though it would take quite some effort to effect that degree of damage.
Regards,
Bob.
Hi Bob
Thanks I've often sat there wondering what all this was, when it was used and big steel wheels on the southern side of the big building explains the cable system you talking about the nicely build terraces with boulders. In the last 4 yrs the building roof fell in and most of the structeral strenth that was keeping most of it in good nick has failed due to age and as you say became a scrap yard. I will see if I can get more detailed pics of equipment and post it later
Alfred
Hi Alfred,
Wouldn't it be fun if you could find the U-Boat engine, though I fear you'd have to dig into one of those inspection pits to uncover it.
Regards,
Bob.
Hi Bob check these photo's add coments if you can thanks
Alfred
more
26 and 27 check the dates and initials on the window frame
more
more
Interesting pics Alf .. where exactly is south works ... ???
Sandy read the story by Bob on the first page, as Bob explains south of the tank farm
Alf .. the reason why .. I have vague memory of seeing some of this as a pikkie .. my Dad was then foreman at the old central fields workshop .. and I would on many weekends when he went to check on work being done .. go with him .. while he was busy I would wander a lot ..
Central fields and the tank farm are very close so I would say south works as Bob spoke about would no be very far maybe a km or 2 to the south?
Ok so that explains the vague memory ...
Nice historical stuff..... Nice Alfie...... 1947..... wonder who's initials.....
Maybe Bob can help lets see
Hi Alfred,
Re the initials: these were a bit before my time. The South Works had been completely abandoned by the time I arrived though still kept for the odd cannabilisation of parts. Judging by what Fritz Heiser told me the works were gone by '48. Most of those employed there would have been SuidWes Duits i.e. German speaking operators and artisans largely from Luderitz, among whom would have been the likely owners of the initials.
As for the pics: most of the sites have been so wrecked and generally stripped that it is hard to recognise anything, however I can identify pic 14, showing the rusted old cocopan bogey with a slab of concrete, as the counter-balance for the gravity tramway.
Pic 24 shows the large Siemens Schukert electrical motor that was the motive power for most of the works which operated off belts (note the belt pulley and the fact that the motor drive shaft has been cut through by a gas torch for removal).
Pic 30 shows the overhead gantry used to move the machines and do general maintenance. At one stage it would have had a sliding block and tackle to lift heavy bearings etc.
Pic 37 is of an old German era tracked stacker, used for transferring sand overburden from the bucket wheel scoop to a dumping area. If you look closely you can still see the Siemens motor on the rusted frame. After W11 these stackers were scrapped and replaced by the revamped Sherman tanks.
Pic 44 is a view of two of the old tramway headgear wheels. These carried a long cable which towed the cocopans up a slope from the mine to be then released for a gravity ride down to the gravel bins.
Pics 46 and 47 show the third wheel, now almost completely rusted away.
Pic 64 shows the gravel boxes used to collect the diamondiferous gravel for onward transport to the sorting screens.
Pic 73 is an interesting one. It shows how the Germans used terracing to create different levels for the various tracks to facilitate the gravity dumping of gravel.
Overall, the South Works has changed utterly from the early Fifties when I was often sent there to scavenge for Siemens parts, mostly white metal bearings. Maintenance was on a wheel and a prayer in those days as postwar stringencies made it difficult to get parts.
Thanks for those pics, Alfred, and a question: did you get a sense of loneliness at the old South Works? I felt it strongly each time I went there, something to do with the abandoned aspect of the place I suppose.
Regards,
Bob.
On the odd weekend in 1968 Ingrid and I would borrow her dad's (Dougie Freemantle) landrover and go courting in this area. Fond memories indeed.
Hi Bob
Check these photo's this building is south of the South works plant a substation of some sort, you would have seen this building in much better state during your time and with less ruble stored inside.
-was the u boat engine inside this building?
-due to the wall bushings on top and HT pole did it supply something else?
-the pit just outside with pipes, was this maybe the fuel supply or old oil drain?
-frame was the u boat engine mounted here
Pic - 11 Elec panel
Pic - 17 Frame
Pic - 3 Pit
Pic - 0 Old HT pole
Pic - 19 Looking up inside Sub (building)
Som more photo's
Pic - 13 Building with South works in back ground
Pic - 9 the posible frame to mount the engine?
Pic - 5 old VT or CT
Pic - 4 wall bushings
Pic - 20 name plate
Hi Bob
With regard to your question to Alfred; it's a strange, eerie sensation at any of the abandoned plants. 1 Plant, 2 Plant, parts of 4 Plant, Affenrucken, Mittag, Beverly Hills, 50G, even the old Cental Fields (gefore it was flattened). Knowing what the places sound like at full production and now you only hear falcons and pigeons, the overpopulous crow and the banging sound of loose cladding in the wind.
Regards
Andrew
Nice picks Alfred. I would love to walk around in those abandoned areas. Just something about old places where a lot of souls ventured..., thinking, seeing, smelling, experiencing. Just by being in the same space, even if it's in a different time, lets one share something with history.
Even the bricks/concrete of the pit in the one picture - somebody mixed it, the gravel made a sound when it was added....
Deep, man, deep.... (I didn't smoke or eat any funny herbs from my garden, I'm just a bit spiritual tonight!)
23_11_61
With reference to pic 37 .. the tank stacker in a sad state .. I have posted somewhere else on the site .. but amongst some of the pics i took yonks ago are these , in likellyhood relevant ... correct me if off track ... last one an old abandoned screening plant .. cant remember where I took these pics ...
Hi Sandy the bottom pic looks so much like something that could have been at the same area those pullies and flat belts next time I'm working in the area going to look for something that could be like the pic you posted
Alfred
Hi Alfred,
I never saw the sub engine in operation, it had already been scrapped by the time I got there and dumped in an inspection pit in the main building together with various other pieces of electrical equipment. If you can find the inspection pit you'll find the engine, unless the scrap iron recovery team got there first.
Pic 11 is an old fuse/distribution box, would have been part of the low tension circuit i.e. 500v and below, on the works.
Pic 17, this is a moulded cast iron frame, a typical base frame for the larger Siemens motors. The sub engine base would likely have been fabricated on site and as such would not have been cast iron.
Pic 3: no recall here, would need an external view of this building to get more information.
Pic 13: one of the old sub-stations used for stepping down voltages from high tension through 500v to the standard 220v.
Sorry to disappoint you, that's about all I can dredge up at this stage though I did enjoy seeing those old pics.
Regards,
Bob.
Hi Sandy,
It looks as if you've been out Mittag way at some stage, that stacker looks very like a post war import from Germany which arrived about '58 and was in operation there for some years. It arrived together with the bucket-wheel machine in the next pic. That was a period during which CDM was being wooed by the Americans to wean themselves off British and German machinery in favour of Yankee junk. The Yanks won the sales pitch, hence that machine was the last major piece of earthmoving equipment imported from Germany. In fact I have an 8mm film taken in 1959, showing myself climbing onto that very machine (then almost new) during a maintenance check. How weird is that?
Regards,
Bob.
This is the area where Central fields workshops used to be north of the tank farm with some old track machine in the water and a strange tank?
Alfred
This is all thats remains at the Tank Farm _________ I recall this building "Hut" at the entrance to the Tank Farm complex
Nice memory pics Alf .. Ta ... my childhood wanderings being refreshed ...
Bob, Alfred, Gordon, Sandy et al what lovely photo's and information.
I recall wandering spell bound around this site with it's old buildings and machinery in the mid seventies when doing field service on earthmoving equipment and also experiencing the deep feelings of loneliness/sentiment/nostalgia about an era so long back in time and also thinking of those souls that worked in these windswept lonely workshops and on the old wartime German machinery. I seem to recall seeing a Siemens nameplate on the motor (pic 24) and some other German inscriptions/writing at the time. In terms of earthmoving machinery...there were still a few (pale green) Euclid/Terex? scrapers and LeTourneau pullers? when I started in OMD in early seventies but these were soon replaced by Cat 633, 641, 657 and WABCO (Westinghouse Airbrake Company) Scrapers, 769 Dump Trucks, D8, D9, and Khomatsu Dozers. The WABCO's had V12, 2 Stroke Diesel engines that sounded like Ferrari race cars at full throttle, man what a sound! I remember what a mission it was to drop the very heavy belly plates of the Scrapers to replace burnt out starter motors and then swing them back up again and refit the massive fastening bolts, needing a few strong 'Vambo's to get under the plate and heave them up and quickly finger tighten at least 2 bolts and breath a huge sigh of relief when all the bolts were secured. Amazing how some experiences are never forgotten. I can still vividly recall the sight/smell/sound feel of those sand dunes and the heavy diesel earthmoving machinery grinding and shoving through the sandy overburden as if it was yesterday. The 'OMD/CDM experience' never leaves you and always remains permanently etched into the very fibre of your being.
Alfred,.... on a similar (sentimental note) you need to take a trip (down memory lane) to Elizabucht Bay and locate your Grandpa Paul's little house. There are enough visual clues in the Elizabeth Bay pics that were posted some time back to locate the actual house. It's one of the three closest to the Rec Club? building. Check Google Earth.
Leon
Bertie Horak
Nice picks Alfred. I would love to walk around in those abandoned areas. Just something about old places where a lot of souls ventured..., thinking, seeing, smelling, experiencing. Just by being in the same space, even if it's in a different time, lets one share something with history.
Even the bricks/concrete of the pit in the one picture - somebody mixed it, the gravel made a sound when it was added....
Deep, man, deep.... (I didn't smoke or eat any funny herbs from my garden, I'm just a bit spiritual tonight!)
Yes Bertie!! I agree with your sentiments, I am not religious in the sense that I believe in a god (have a dog which is god backwards) but as you have said walking around old place's sometimes the hair on the back of your head stands up.
There are other times when its very calm and serene, there are a lot of times in my life when I have experienced these moments, some are good others a bit scary.
Michael did tell me they had demolished Central Fields!! (worked there for three years) I had looked for it on Google Earth all them years then................................................Gone.
image04
The 4 pics in my second last post is all thats left of the central fields area, all I can do is bring a few pics, to the forum I do often day dream while in the diferent old area's wish many a time I was a generation older to have experianced what happend
Alfred
Alfred Boehme posted a pic of a piece of chassis
[ pic 14 reposted here ]It might be the remains of a flatbed rail car , used at 3 plant to transport the dolosse for the jetty
Hennie, Nice snaps, I agree with the first pic, flatbed rail car..... one can still see the coupling link!
LOve the 3 plant jetty pics.....
It's amazing to see how far out it actually went, I think the beach is almost at the sea end now....
I had fun using the Jaws Of Life (Training for fire brigade.)on some of those old wrecks.
3 Plant Jetty No Longer reaches the see
After a good service , ???
Wow it's amazing how they utilised the Tanks
On page 3 similar pics of tanks utilised ..
more tanks
Nice snaps of the tanks....
If one never knew better, you could be forgiven for thinking Rommel and Monty were battling it out in this desert of ours.....
TRULY AMAZING .. ONCE WARRIORS ..
Amazing pictures. If they could talk... what great stories they would be able to tell of souls lost and battles fought... msn emoticon (9)
a protected waterwell . The funnel thing on top was facing the prevailing south wersterly wind , The 250 mm galvenised pipe went down the shaft to ventilate the very deep shaft . One could go down the shaft with wooden ladders and a wooden landing every 4 meters or so.
Just to add
Outside
Going In
In and all the way down
I dropped a stone down and counted to 5 before it seemed to hit bottom, please work out the depth for me you brainy guys or gals
are those the same two places, Hennie and Alfies place?
Yes Mike, both the same building. If I remember correctly, the well and buildings were off the road but towards the Chamais gate region. There was also a large stone built house close to the pump house and about two K's away, a wooden built house...........
Thanks pOps...... German buildings and British tanks..... were else in the world.....
Thanks Alf for the additional pic's , yes Michael it is the same place. my one just a decade or two earlier then Alf's
The wooden house Mike mentioned,
Mike V closer to RotKop gate than Chamais +/- 25Km
Enjoy
Quote from: henniek on October 18, 2011, 07:08:09 PM
Thanks Alf for the additional pic's , yes Michael it is the same place. my one just a decade or two earlier then Alf's
I saw that well for the first time at the age of about 10 yrs old that would be 1976, always remembered it but did not know where it was. I recal my dad pulling me away from the hole. Always wondred where it was I had a idea it was on the way to Luderitz along the Rotop road.
I found it last week on a tour, my gut feeling was right
1 . Gemsbok dump & Machines.
2 . a old sign from a time when OM tel numbers were 3 digits only . So a joker wrote , adding a fourth digit "If you are lost phone 3869" . Incedently 3869 that was my telephone number in town . I had a good laugh wondering where one would phone from .
3 is af a house somewhere in the desert .. can not remember
4 . Abandonned ox waggon in desert
5. Mule cart between Conception and Meob bay.
Look at the photo that Henniek posted and the one below of the ox wagons, could it be the same wagon?
Alfred - Yes It looks like the same oxwagon
And on page 1 Bob mention about a huge machine , look at my pic re Gemsbok dump . Was it perhaps this bucketwheel excavator he was referuing to ?
BOB's COMMENT : an immense piece of machinery known as the Sauerman Scraper.
The scraper was a huge steel tower about 40 metres high which moved on caterpillar tracks like a tank. It also had a smaller "slave" tower which stood at some distance and acted as the other end of a gigantic dragline system which used a massive steel bucket to remove the sand overburden from the workings. So huge was that bucket that it was possible to park an entire landrover in it, so it was a substantial piece of equipment.
Mining tanks & bucketwheel .sorry about the poor quality of pic
Quote from: henniek on October 21, 2011, 05:30:20 AM
Alfred - Yes It looks like the same oxwagon
And on page 1 Bob mention about a huge machine , look at my pic re Gemsbok dump . Was it perhaps this bucketwheel excavator he was referuing to ?
BOB's COMMENT : an immense piece of machinery known as the Sauerman Scraper.
The scraper was a huge steel tower about 40 metres high which moved on caterpillar tracks like a tank. It also had a smaller "slave" tower which stood at some distance and acted as the other end of a gigantic dragline system which used a massive steel bucket to remove the sand overburden from the workings. So huge was that bucket that it was possible to park an entire landrover in it, so it was a substantial piece of equipment.
I think you spot on there Henniek, that stuff was a long before my time but reading Bob's story and my understanding of what Bob is talking about looks like your pic is under those dumps
Alfred's pics of the water well [ 1.Outside
2. In side 3 . and all the way down where he dropped a stone down and counted to 5 before it seemed to hit bottom ] . Thanks for these pic's Alfred . The last time I was there , the half rotten wooden platform at the top was still there , and one could not look down , and besides that, the camera I had was marginally better than a Kodak box model .
Story of the map. The first day I started with CDM , I was instructed to go some place . Not knowing where to go , Ivan Morrow took me outside , showed me the road out of town to the mining area . And while giving me this map , he said that if I'm lost , I can use the map to find my way around. Later I found out that this map was of no use .
But what I want to point out . look at the centre of the map . [2 x yellow knobs ] there are 2 macines . I believe the further one is Bobs scraper . I include a 16 m3 scraper because Bob said one could park a land rover in the one used at CDM
Yes, a bit cartoonish but the second map certainly has a good representation of what the Sauerman Scraper looked like. As for the bucket, it could well have come from the Scraper but my recall is that the Sauerman and all its component parts were buried under the screening plant dump just north of the old Gemsbok workshops.
Alf's pic Central Fields 3, the tank that he refers to if I remember correctly is a mooring buoy (standing on end) of sorts, probably from the early tank farm days and the off shore submarine pipeline. I recall a similar buoy with chains through uncovered by the current dredge around G75 area a few years ago. It was a huge wood and steel barrel about 2+ meters in diameter and about the same in length. There was a lot of wood on the corners probably to prevent metal to metal damage of the ship bumping up against it during mooring.
The picture of the bucket wheel seems to be of the same type as depicted in Pine Pienaar's pics of old Oranjemund except that the driver's compartment has been removed. Check the two photo's out carefully for similarities.
Leon
Quote from: Michael Alexander on October 16, 2011, 02:57:38 PM
Nice snaps of the tanks....
If one never knew better, you could be forgiven for thinking Rommel and Monty were battling it out in this desert of ours.....
Way back in the late 1940's and ealy 1950's my father used to service the electrical starter motors on those tanks.
They carried two thick planks or rubber mats, to cross the roads used by other vehicles.
The top gear position was locked with a pad lock, so that the driver could not engage top gear. Apparently these things could go through a sand dune instead of over, when its 40 tons was moving at 40 mph.