Featured Station Layout Diagram – Somerset West Above: The Somerset West Station layout diagram as redrawn in August 2015 by Greg Hart. The original diagram was prepared in February 1932 and amended in October 1937. Left: A Firgrove / Somerset Wes (West) Van Schoor tablet (Photo – Greg Hart). Somerset West Station is situated about 45 kilometers south east of Cape Town in the scenic suburb of the same name at the foot of the Helderberg mountains. The station still sees regular Metrorail traffic and although the full semaphore signalling system is no longer working, Van Schoor machines are still used in the signal cabin together with hand-worked points. Left: A very young Col. André Kritzinger’s first foray into rail photography! André, as a young schoolboy in STD 9, was on his way to Strand for a Sunday school picnic when he captured this Type 4M Motor Coach at Somerset West Station in 1965. “These two-pantograph metal sheathed wooden motor coaches started disappearing from South African rails during the 1960s and 1970s” – A.K. 14
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