THREE VINTAGE 1950S SAR RAILWAY SLEEPER CAST IRON SCREW TRACK BOLTS

THREE VINTAGE 1950S RAILWAY SLEEPER TRACK BOLTS. TWO ARE MARKED SAR ONE FROM 1956 AND THE OTHER FROM 1958. THE THIRD ONES MARKINGS REMAIN OBSCURE. THESE OLD RAILWAY BOLTS ARE RARE SINCE 99% HAVE BEEN MELTED DOWN WHEN REMOVED FROM OLD WOODEN SLEEPERS. THE HAVE BECOME GREAT COLLECTORS ITEMS WITH SOME COLLECTING THE DIFFERENT DATES WHILE OTHERS USE THEM AS DECORATIVE DOOR KNOBS OR JACKET RACKS.
 
Railway Coach Bolts hold down the railway track onto the railway sleeper.The British and South African railways has used them for more than a 100 years. Screws bolts are easier to fit (using either hand tools or pneumatic power tools) and certainly easier to remove. They can be tightened up if they begin to work loose, which they very rarely do because of their design.
 
IN THE PIONEER DAYS OF RAILWAY CONSTRUCTION THE FLAT BOTTOM RAIL WAS MERELY SPIKED DIRECT TO WOODEN SLEEPERS. AS TRAINS INCREASED IN WEIGHT AND SPEED IT BECAME NECESSARY TO IMPROVE ON THIS ORIGINAL FASTENING FOR WOODEN SLEEPERS. In addition steel sleepers and, in more recent years, concrete sleepers were developed. Today wood, steel and concrete sleepers are in general use and the fastenings for securing the rail to them are many and varied.
 
On the South African Railways there are about 29 million sleepers in use of which about 70 per cent are steel. THE WOODEN SLEEPER ON THE OTHER HAND STILL REMAINS THE GENERAL ALL PURPOSE SLEEPER. The number of concrete sleepers inserted in the tracks is relative small being about one million and of these the majority have only recently come into use. The average life of a good wooden sleeper is from 15 to 18 years as compared with anything up to 40 years for a steel sleeper.
 
MARKINGS:
SAR / ILVA / 1956 / A
SAR / ILVA / 1958 / A
EH3 / VA / IC / A
 
SIZE 19CM LONG 5,5CM DIAMETER ROUND BOLT HEAD 2CM SQUARE BOLT HEAD FINIAAL
 
CONDITION: SOME RUST VISIBLE
 
SOUTH AFRICAN RAILWAYS (SAR):
The first railway was from Cape Town to Wellington and was worked by a small locomotive in 1859. The first passenger carrying service was a small line of about 3.2 kilometres built by the Natal Railway Company linking the town of Durban with Harbour Point, opened on 26 June 1860.
In the north, in the independent Boer Republics railway construction was done by the Netherlands Railway Company (NZASM), which constructed two major lines: one from Pretoria to Lourenco Marques and a shorter line connecting Pretoria to Johannesburg. 
Later railway development was driven by Cecil Rhodes whose original intention was for a railway extending across Africa as a great Cape-Cairo railway linking all the British territories of Africa. Most early railways in Africa were built by the British government rather than by Companies. The need to raise capital and produce dividends prevented most Companies from undertaking such infrastructure investments. Nonetheless the railway that had stopped at Mafeking was extended to Bulawayo by October 1897 and the first train arrived in Victoria Falls on the Zambesi in 1904. This national South African network was largely completed by 1910 but ahough railway lines were also being extended as far north as Northern Rhodesia (present-day Zambia) the vision to have a rail system that would run from the Cape to Cairo would never materialise.
Upon the merger of four provinces to establish the modern state of South Africa in 1910, the railway lines across the country were also merged. South African Railways and Harbours (SAR & H) was the government agency responsible for, amongst other things, the country's rail system.
 
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