Page 43 - SAICE book proof 2 LATEST JULY 2014

s a i c e
GAUTENG PROVINCE

bridge in downtown Johannesburg. It is a 284 m ◊ Below: Nelson Mandela Bridge
long asymmetrical dual pylon cable stayed bridge ◊ Bottom: Gautrain
across 42 railway lines. Founded on highly weathered
Ventersdorp lava, the pylons on both ends consist of
cross braced tubular steel columns filled with concrete.
An interesting fact is that the concrete was pumped
into the steel columns from the bottom upwards to
prevent aggregate segregation which would have
happened if the concrete was to be dropped into
the steel tubes from the top. When it was opened in
2003, a fun run was organised that drew thousands
of runners and even SAICE assembled an invitation
team who was sponsored by Alpha Cement to wear
similar blue T-shirts for the bus run.

26°11’50.09” S, 28°02’03.61” E

• Gautrain is a new era, state-of-the-art integrated
transportation project and carries passengers in a
safe and clean environment from Johannesburg to
Pretoria by means of a route along deep tunnels, over
long viaducts at grade and even along a ground level
bridge type structure over the notorious dolomite
sinkhole areas of Centurion. An interesting feature
is that the stations are served by dedicated feeder
buses painted in the same livery as that of the train.

This train has become another landmark and although
it is a working high speed train for commuters, it still
attracts tourists and passengers going on an outing
for shopping, eating out or just to experience the ride. the engineer in charge of the project – JACK OF ALL
It moved South Africa back to international gauge in TRAINS. This project called for a massive project
terms of track width and as such was breaking new management exercise to coordinate all the built
ground. The design and construction of this high environment professionals as well as all the other
profile and highly visible project presented huge disciplines who were involved.
challenges for civil engineering and the interested
reader is encouraged to make a special effort to
investigate it. 26°06’29.96” S, 28°03’24.68” E

During construction it was a very popular attraction
for civil engineering tours and invariably attracted • Maropeng or Cradle of Human Kind is one of eight
publicity when something would go wrong like the World Heritage sites in South Africa and features a
sinkhole that appeared in the middle of a very busy number of very interesting architectural and civil
main street in Rosebank, due to leaking water pipes engineering structures, served by a network of
causing the roof tunnel to collapse at that point. new infrastructure, especially a network of roads to
Another interesting fact is that the opening of the improve access.
section form Rosebank to Johannesburg Park station
had to be delayed for a period to enhance the water Excavations at various sites over 47 000ha at
proofing of the tunnel, necessitated by the continuous Sterkfontein is world famous as it revealed the remains
inflow of substantial groundwater that had to be of the pre-human skull commonly known as Mrs Ples
pumped out. Anecdotes and stories about this project and the humanoid skeleton known as Little Foot in the
abound, but suffice to close this paragraph by quoting longest continuous on-going paleontological digs in
a newspaper heading calling Jack van der Merwe, the world. The structure housing the main exhibitions

1