Sunday, September 19, 2010

whats left of the steam era,


As a retired builder,My interest vary and when I see a victorian construction like this water tank
I wonder how it came to be here in Egypt. I came across this rather interesting piece of architectural history on a walk I did behind the Luxor train station the railway was quite late coming to the nile delta of upper Egypt this dates back to late victoria so could be as late as 1901. there is a railway museum in Cairo, and a must visit for me within the next month of my travels around Egypt,

First Train in Egypt
rail museum cairo link

This piece of engineering I know a little bit more about,
The old Victorian water tank that was used to fill the trains up with water, (For steam) by the late 1960s was to far from the railway line;- trains had to unhook and make a detour to the tank to be filled up adding a further 1 hour to the journey, so it was decided to build a new one on the main line where the steam train could stop and fill up from the new water tank. the tank was completed 6 months before the regions rail network bought new diesel powered trains, the steam trains and its water tanks became obsolete. The water tanks are of no use for domestic water storage as most buildings in luxor are more than two storeys high. in the lower photo there is a new water tower in the distance, and of course today's modern water plants are using electric pumps to pump water around its pipe system. so these night storage tanks are also obsolete. in the main towns that have updated the water supply system.

Even the old telephone poles can still be seen along the railway lines
only the top pots are used to hold the wires with the new addition on the topmost for the electricity power lines. a quite recent thing in this part of Egypt. now they have the hydro electricity Dam in Aswan, for those interested in the high dam here is a link,,,,here.

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1 comment:

Bob Bushell said...

It is actually a Steam Train, in Egypt. I could have been run over, but, I kind of fast going, unlike your train.