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The project was requested in response to President Sam
Nujoma's vision to develop the North of Namibia. This
includes future plans for a new harbour at Cape Fria
on the Skeleton Coast as well as a brand new road and
rail link from Ondangwa to Cape Fria some 800 km long.
We are currently busy constructing the line from
Tsumeb to Ondangwa in phase one of the Northern
Railway Extension. This 245 km railway line has an
estimated construction cost of N$ 850 million and is
expected to be completed in December 2006, explains
Victor Reiger, Engineering Associate at Windhoek
Consulting Engineers.
Aerial photography was used to assist the team with
the alignment, which according to Victor was
challenging to say the least. Of the 245 km
approximately 88 km falls on commercial farm land. The
remainder of the railway goes through communal land
that is scattered with shacks, schools, graveyards,
kraals, and other obstacles. We conducted a
three-month survey to accumulate the necessary
information for the final horizontal and vertical
design. But we often had to make changes to the
alignment during the design and construction phase due
to some burial graves that were encountered. These
graves were not even marked and local residents often
had to point them out to the construction team on
site, explains Victor.
The first 88 km of the project was done using normal
construction methods, while the rest of the venture
was labour intensive. Workers were used to convey sub
ballast material from borrow pits and fill material
onto the embankment. It is likely that the project
will be in progress till 2010 and will generate
large-scale employment. More than 600 people have
already been employed on the project to assist with
manual labour.
Victor attributes the success of his projects to the
speed and efficiency of Civil Designer and admits to
being a loyal user for three years. I enjoy working
with the program. It has simplified our lives to such
an extent that we no longer have to spend long hours
trying to create a drawing when the program performs
this operation in a matter of seconds. It has
definitely increased our productivity and we are
always assured of high quality work and a professional
presentation, says Victor.
Phase two of the project entails the construction of a
59 km railway line from Ondangwa to Oshikango. The
estimated construction cost is N$ 400 million and is
likely to be completed in December 2007. Phase three
aims to extend a further 45 km railway line from
Ondangwa to
Oshikango and has an estimated
construction cost of N$ 220 million. This final phase
will be completed in December 2008.
It is such an incredible privilege to be working on
assignments of this magnitude. The scope is endless!
The earthwork embankment in phase one |
is currently 80% complete and we have also since finalised 90 km of
permanent way construction, notes Victor.
UPGRADING OF MR 67 BETWEEN KAMANJAB
AND OMAKANGE
Besides the massive Northern Railway Extension that
Windhoek Consulting Engineers is working on, they are
also engaged in the MR67 road upgrade. We are
currently working on a very interesting road upgrade
of Main Road 67 between Kamanjab and Omakange in the
North of Namibia. The project was requested by the
Ministry of Transport, and consists of 204 km of
gravel road that will be upgraded to a bitumen surface
standard, explains Victor.
The survey for the road upgrade was conducted by Henry
Graham surveyors in Cape Town and entailed a study of
the entire servitude complete with drainage
structures. The team also performed a hydraulic
investigation of all the bridges and storm water
structures to determine if any structure needed to be
adjusted. We used the information to determine the
horizontal and vertical alignment, explains Victor,
adding that their primary focus during the project was
to ensure a cost effective design by optimising the
alignment to tie in with the existing drainage
structures and other features along the road.
Although the project was extremely interesting, there
were many design challenges. The road was originally
designed with an 80 km/h design speed. This meant that
there were a number of cuts and fills that had to be
designed in order to accommodate the increased design
speed. In addition, approximately 80 km of the road
bordered the Etosha National Park, making the road
with farms and lodges along the route, a tourist
attraction. In one particular stretch of approximately
5 km, the steep grades and sharp turns were so severe
that the design speed had to be reduced to 100km/h.
We decided to reduce the design speed to 100km/h due
to the environmental restrictions as we did not wish
to change the horizontal alignment of the road, notes
Victor. The construction, estimated at N$ 300 million,
has been divided into two sections with the
construction of the first section due to commence in
July 2005.
Victor Rieger,
Windhoek Consulting Engineers |
