Francistown
Francistown is the second largest city in Botswana, with a population of about 100,079 and 150,800 inhabitants for its agglomeration at the 2011 census. And described as the "Capital of the North." It is located in eastern Botswana, about 400 kilometres north-northeast from the capital, Gaborone. Francistown is located at the confluence of the Tati and Inchwe rivers, near the Shashe River and 90 kilometres from the international border with Zimbabwe. Francistown was the centre of southern Africa's first gold rush and is still surrounded by old and abandoned mines; the City of Francistown is an administrative district, separated from North-East District. It is administered by Francistown City Council. Although evidence of habitation by humans goes back around 10,000 years, written evidence is more recent; the Matabele people colonised the area in the 1830s on their way to Bulawayo, bringing their culture and influence to the BaKalanga/Kalanga area of north-eastern Botswana. Nyangabgwe was the nearest village to Francistown to have been visited by Europeans, when it was visited by the missionary, Robert Moffat.
Moffat was followed in 1867 by a gold prospector, Karl Mauch who found the Bakalanga mining gold along the Tati River, publicised the Tati Goldfields starting the first South Africa goldrush. The present town was founded in 1897 as a settlement near the Monarch mine and named after Daniel Francis, an English prospector from Liverpool who acquired prospecting licences in the region in 1869. Francis was a director of the Tati Concessions Land; the centre of the new town was formed. The Monarch mine was not the only mine in operation at that time, it was believed that Francistown would grow rapidly. In the beginning, the town comprised one street east of, parallel to the railway line; this street featured several companies, including two hotels and wholesale shops and three banks. Prior to independence Francistown was Botswana’s largest commercial centre. In 1897, the company sold part of the land for residential and commercial purposes, one may say that this marked the birth of Francistown; the city started as a gold mining town, gold sustained the area’s economy from the late 1800s until the 1930s.
When gold was discovered nearby in 1869 it sparked the first gold rush in Africa fifteen years before the gold boom at Witwatersrand in South Africa. The industry was hard hit by the global recession of the 1930s. Between 1936 and 1980s, the economy of Francistown was supported or dependent on the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association, a company that recruited labour for South African mines; the miners were recruited from many African countries, transported to South Africa through Francistown by air or railway. Haskins Street was the first tarred road in Botswana. Since 1966, the city has grown due to active cross-border trading with Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, in 1997, Francistown became a city, Botswana’s 2nd after Gaborone. With the city located astride Botswana’s main road and rail transport routes, mining and agriculture have been essential parts of its economy. Tati Nickel, The Dumela Industrial Complex and Botswana Meat Commission are the main economic drivers in the city. Both government departments and private benefit the local economy.
There are a variety of places of worship, including Catholic churches, Muslim mosques, as well as Protestant churches some of which serve traditional African congregations such as the Zionist Christian Church. Education around the city is diverse. There are several private English-medium schools and government schools such as Mater Spei College, Francistown Teacher Training College, University of Botswana Campus and several technical colleges. Transport is reliable, with railway links to Harare and Bulawayo in Zimbabwe, road links with Ramokgwebana Border in the north, Kazungula as well as Kasane, Maun via Nata; the airport has flights flying locally, to Gaborone, Maun and other points around the country. Local taxis operate through the night. Francistown is located on Botswana's main road transport routes. Principal mining companies include Tati Nickel, owned by Norilsk Nickel, which has operations at the Selkirk Mine and Phoenix Mine, producing principally cobalt and nickel; the Dumela Industrial Complex, an industrial park, is an important employer.
However, the project was halted due to high costs. The city's media fraternity is still at its infant stage; the media includes Botswana's The Voice newspaper, founded in 1993. This is a popular tabloid newspaper that had spread its wings to the capital city, Gaborone. Francistown features a hot semi-arid climate, with warm to mild winters; the city on averages sees 460 millimetres of precipitation annually. The city features a short wet season that spans from December through March and a lengthy dry season that covers the remaining eight months. Francistown receives on average only 3 millimetres of precipitation at the peak of its dry season, when it experiences its chilliest temperatures. Average low temperatures fall below 8 °C during the aforementioned months. Since the founding of Francistown as a gold mining and railway centre in the nineteenth century, the city's population has consistentl
Trans-Kalahari Corridor
The Trans-Kalahari Corridor is a paved highway corridor that provides a direct route from Walvis Bay and Windhoek in central Namibia, through Botswana, to Johannesburg and Pretoria in Gauteng province in South Africa. It cost 850 million Namibian dollars and was opened in 1998; the corridor includes railway lines from Walvis Bay as far as Gobabis in Namibia, from Johannesburg as far as Lobatse in Botswana. Connecting the two railway lines has been discussed since 2010, an agreement between the two countries was signed in 2014, but the project has since become economically unfeasible; the Maputo Corridor provides an onwards connection from Gauteng to Maputo in Mozambique. Together these corridors form a unique road connection between Walvis Bay on the Atlantic and Maputo on the Indian Ocean. In Namibia, the corridor is made up of the B2 from Walvis Bay through Swakopmund to Okahandja, the B1 from Okahandja to Windhoek, the B6 from Windhoek through Gobabis to the Botswana border at Buitepos/Mamuno.
In Botswana it is called the A2 and runs through Jwaneng and Lobatse to the South African border at Pioneer Gate/Skilpadshek. In South Africa it follows the N4 through Rustenburg to Pretoria; the route Walvis Bay–Windhoek–Lobatse–Pretoria–Maputo is route number 40 in the Southern African Development Community Regional Trunk Road Network
Bicycle
A bicycle called a cycle or bike, is a human-powered or motor-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A bicycle rider is called bicyclist. Bicycles were introduced in the late 19th century in Europe, by the early 21st century, more than 1 billion were in existence at a given time; these numbers far exceed the number of cars, both in total and ranked by the number of individual models produced. They are the principal means of transportation in many regions, they provide a popular form of recreation, have been adapted for use as children's toys, general fitness and police applications, courier services, bicycle racing and bicycle stunts. The basic shape and configuration of a typical upright or "safety bicycle", has changed little since the first chain-driven model was developed around 1885. However, many details have been improved since the advent of modern materials and computer-aided design; these have allowed for a proliferation of specialized designs for many types of cycling.
The bicycle's invention has had an enormous effect on society, both in terms of culture and of advancing modern industrial methods. Several components that played a key role in the development of the automobile were invented for use in the bicycle, including ball bearings, pneumatic tires, chain-driven sprockets and tension-spoked wheels; the word bicycle first appeared in English print in The Daily News in 1868, to describe "Bysicles and trysicles" on the "Champs Elysées and Bois de Boulogne". The word was first used in 1847 in a French publication to describe an unidentified two-wheeled vehicle a carriage; the design of the bicycle was an advance on the velocipede, although the words were used with some degree of overlap for a time. Other words for bicycle include "bike", "pushbike", "pedal cycle", or "cycle". In Unicode, the code point for "bicycle" is 0x1F6B2; the entity 🚲. The "Dandy horse" called Draisienne or Laufmaschine, was the first human means of transport to use only two wheels in tandem and was invented by the German Baron Karl von Drais.
It is regarded as the modern bicycle's forerunner. Its rider sat astride a wooden frame supported by two in-line wheels and pushed the vehicle along with his or her feet while steering the front wheel; the first mechanically-propelled, two-wheeled vehicle may have been built by Kirkpatrick MacMillan, a Scottish blacksmith, in 1839, although the claim is disputed. He is associated with the first recorded instance of a cycling traffic offense, when a Glasgow newspaper in 1842 reported an accident in which an anonymous "gentleman from Dumfries-shire... bestride a velocipede... of ingenious design" knocked over a little girl in Glasgow and was fined five shillings. In the early 1860s, Frenchmen Pierre Michaux and Pierre Lallement took bicycle design in a new direction by adding a mechanical crank drive with pedals on an enlarged front wheel; this was the first in mass production. Another French inventor named Douglas Grasso had a failed prototype of Pierre Lallement's bicycle several years earlier.
Several inventions followed using rear-wheel drive, the best known being the rod-driven velocipede by Scotsman Thomas McCall in 1869. In that same year, bicycle wheels with wire spokes were patented by Eugène Meyer of Paris; the French vélocipède, made of iron and wood, developed into the "penny-farthing". It featured a tubular steel frame on; these bicycles were difficult to ride due to poor weight distribution. In 1868 Rowley Turner, a sales agent of the Coventry Sewing Machine Company, brought a Michaux cycle to Coventry, England, his uncle, Josiah Turner, business partner James Starley, used this as a basis for the'Coventry Model' in what became Britain's first cycle factory. The dwarf ordinary addressed some of these faults by reducing the front wheel diameter and setting the seat further back. This, in turn, required gearing—effected in a variety of ways—to efficiently use pedal power. Having to both pedal and steer via the front wheel remained a problem. Englishman J. K. Starley, J. H. Lawson, Shergold solved this problem by introducing the chain drive, connecting the frame-mounted cranks to the rear wheel.
These models were known as safety bicycles, dwarf safeties, or upright bicycles for their lower seat height and better weight distribution, although without pneumatic tires the ride of the smaller-wheeled bicycle would be much rougher than that of the larger-wheeled variety. Starley's 1885 Rover, manufactured in Coventry is described as the first recognizably modern bicycle. Soon the seat tube was added. Further innovations increased comfort and ushered in a second bicycle craze, the 1890s Golden Age of Bicycles. In 1888, Scotsman John Boyd Dunlop introduced the first practical pneumatic tire, which soon became universal. Willie Hume demonstrated the supremacy of Dunlop's tyres in 1889, winning the tyre's first-ever races in Ireland and England. Soon after, the rear freewheel was developed; this refinement led to the 1890s invention of coaster brakes. Dérailleur gears and hand-operated Bowden cable-pull brakes were developed during these years, but were only adopted by casual riders; the Svea Velocipede with vertical pedal arrangement and
Highway
A highway is any public or private road or other public way on land. It is used for major roads, but includes other public roads and public tracks: It is not an equivalent term to controlled-access highway, or a translation for autobahn, etc. According to Merriam Webster, the use of the term predates 12th century. According to Etymonline, "high" is in the sense of "main". In North American and Australian English, major roads such as controlled-access highways or arterial roads are state highways. Other roads may be designated "county highways" in the Ontario; these classifications refer to the level of government. In British English, "highway" is a legal term. Everyday use implies roads, while the legal use covers any route or path with a public right of access, including footpaths etc; the term has led to several related derived terms, including highway system, highway code, highway patrol and highwayman. The term highway exists in distinction to "waterway". Major highways are named and numbered by the governments that develop and maintain them.
Australia's Highway 1 is the longest national highway in the world at over 14,500 km or 9,000 mi and runs the entire way around the continent. China has the world's largest network of highways followed by the United States of America; some highways, like the European routes, span multiple countries. Some major highway routes include ferry services, such as U. S. Route 10. Traditionally highways were used on horses, they accommodated carriages and motor cars, facilitated by advancements in road construction. In the 1920s and 1930s, many nations began investing in progressively more modern highway systems to spur commerce and bolster national defense. Major modern highways that connect cities in populous developed and developing countries incorporate features intended to enhance the road's capacity and safety to various degrees; such features include a reduction in the number of locations for user access, the use of dual carriageways with two or more lanes on each carriageway, grade-separated junctions with other roads and modes of transport.
These features are present on highways built as motorways. The general legal definition deals with right of use not the form of construction. A highway is defined in English common law by a number of similarly-worded definitions such as "a way over which all members of the public have the right to pass and repass without hindrance" accompanied by "at all times". A highway might be open to all forms of lawful land traffic or limited to specific types of traffic or combinations of types of traffic. A highway can share ground with a private right of way for which full use is not available to the general public as will be the case with farm roads which the owner may use for any purpose but for which the general public only has a right of use on foot or horseback; the status of highway on most older roads has been gained by established public use while newer roads are dedicated as highways from the time they are adopted. In England and Wales, a public highway is known as "The Queen's Highway"; the core definition of a highway is modified in various legislation for a number of purposes but only for the specific matters dealt with in each such piece of legislation.
This is in the case of bridges and other structures whose ownership, mode of use or availability would otherwise exclude them from the general definition of a highway, examples in recent years are toll bridges and tunnels which have the definition of highway imposed upon them to allow application of most traffic laws to those using them but without causing all of the general obligations or rights of use otherwise applicable to a highway. Scots law is similar to English law with regard to highways but with differing terminology and legislation. What is defined in England as a highway will in Scotland be what is defined by s.151 Roads Act 1984 as a road, that is:- "any way over which there is a public right of passage and includes the road’s verge, any bridge over which, or tunnel through which, the road passes. In American law, the word "highway" is sometimes used to denote any public way used for travel, whether a "road and parkway". Highways have a route number designated by t
Sleeping car
The sleeping car or sleeper is a railway passenger car that can accommodate all its passengers in beds of one kind or another for the purpose of making nighttime travel more restful. George Pullman was the American inventor of the sleeper car; the first such cars saw sporadic use on American railroads in the 1830s. Some of the more luxurious types have private rooms; the earliest example of a sleeping car was on the London & Birmingham and Grand junction Railways between London and Lancashire, England. This was made available to first class passengers in 1838; the Cumberland Valley Railroad pioneered sleeping car service in the spring of 1839, with a car named "Chambersburg", between Chambersburg and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. A couple of years a second car, the "Carlisle", was introduced into service. In 1857, the Wason Manufacturing Company of Springfield, Massachusetts – one of the United States' first makers of railway passenger coach equipment – produced America's first designed sleeping car.
The man who made the sleeping car business profitable in the United States was George Pullman, who began by building a luxurious sleeping car in 1865. The Pullman Company, founded as the Pullman Palace Car Company in 1867, owned and operated most sleeping cars in the United States until the mid-20th century, attaching them to passenger trains run by the various railroads. During the peak years of American passenger railroading, several all-Pullman trains existed, including the 20th Century Limited on the New York Central Railroad, the Broadway Limited on the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Panama Limited on the Illinois Central Railroad, the Super Chief on the Atchison and Santa Fe Railway. Pullman cars were a dark "Pullman green", although some were painted in the host railroad's colors; the cars carried individual names, but did not carry visible numbers. In the 1920s, the Pullman Company went through a series of restructuring steps, which in the end resulted in a parent company, Pullman Incorporated, controlling the Pullman Company and the Pullman-Standard Car Manufacturing Company.
Due to an antitrust verdict in 1947, a consortium of railroads bought the Pullman Company from Pullman Incorporated, subsequently railroads owned and operated Pullman-made sleeping cars themselves. Pullman-Standard continued manufacturing sleeping cars and other passenger and freight railroad cars until 1980. One unanticipated consequence of the rise of Pullman cars in the US in the 19th and early 20th centuries was their effect on civil rights and African-American culture; each Pullman car was staffed by a uniformed porter. The majority of Pullman Porters were African Americans. While still a menial job in many respects, Pullman offered better pay and security than most jobs open to African Americans at the time, in addition to a chance for travel, it was a well regarded job in the African-American community of the time; the pullman attendants, regardless of their true name, were traditionally referred to as "George" by the travelers, the name of the company's founder, George Pullman. The Pullman company was the largest employer of African Americans in the United States.
Subsequently, railway porters fought for political recognition and were unionized. Their union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, became an important source of strength for the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement in the early 20th century, notably under the leadership of A. Philip Randolph; because they moved about the country, Pullman porters became an important means of communication for news and cultural information of all kinds. The African-American newspaper, the Chicago Defender, gained a national circulation in this way. Porters used to re-sell phonograph records bought in the great metropolitan centres adding to the distribution of jazz and blues and the popularity of the artists. From the 19th to the mid-20th century, the most common and more economical type of sleeping car accommodation on North American trains was the "open section". Open-section accommodations consist of pairs of seats, one seat facing forward and the other backward, situated on either side of a center aisle; the seat pairs can be converted into the combination of an upper and a lower "berth", each berth consisting of a bed screened from the aisle by a curtain.
A famous example of open sections can be seen in the movie. As the 20th century progressed, an increasing variety of private rooms was offered. Most of these rooms provided more space than open-section accommodations could offer. Open-sections, in the 1950s were phased out, in favor of roomettes; some of them, such as the rooms of the "slumbercoach" cars manufactured by the Budd Company and first put into service in 1956, were triumphs of miniaturization. These allowed a single car to increase the number of sleepers over a conventional sleeping car of private rooms. A Roomette, in the correct sense of the word, is a private room for a single passenger, containing a single seat, a folding bed, a toilet, a washbasin; when a traditional Roomette is in night mode, the bed blocks access to the toilet. Like open sections, Roomettes are placed with a corridor down the center. Duplex Roomettes, a Pullman-produced precursor to the slumbercoach, are staggered vertically, with every second accommodation rais
Botswana Railways
Botswana Railways is the national railway of Botswana. BR was created in 1987 when the government of Botswana bought out the Botswana-based sections of the National Railways of Zimbabwe. NRZ had been operating the rail system after Botswana had gained independence. Management of the BR is supported by RITES Ltd. of India. The opening of the Beitbridge Bulawayo Railway in Zimbabwe in 1999 resulted in a major drop in the volume of freight transit and income; as a response the BR has been considering the construction of a direct line to Zambia, bypassing Zimbabwe, to regain income from transit. On 27 February 2009, an announcement was made of the termination of all Botswana Railways passenger services. However, passenger trains run by National Railways of Zimbabwe continue to run from Bulawayo to Lobatse via Plumtree and Gaborone; as of October 2010, BR was building a large shopping mall near Gaborone station, expressed hopes that passenger services might resume, although BR could not give any concrete details.
In December 2014 Botswana Railways announced that they will purchase new passenger cars and locomotives and that passenger services would resume in late 2015. A passenger service between Gaborone and Lobatse, marketed under the name BR Express began operation in March 2016; the Botswana Railways system consists of 888 kilometres of 1,067 mm Cape gauge track. The main line runs through the south-eastern region of Botswana from Mahikeng in South Africa through Lobatse, Mahalapye and Francistown to Plumtree in Zimbabwe. In addition there are three branch lines: from Palapye to Morupule Colliery, from Serule to Selebi-Phikwe, from Francistown to Sowa. Main Line - 640 km Francistown to Sua Pan - 174.5 km Palapye to Morupule Colliery - 16 km Private Sidings - 50 km Service Sidings - 20 km Station Yards - 30 km Crossing Loops - 20 km As of December 2017 8 General Electric UM 22C diesel-electric locomotives, 1982 20 General Motors Model GT22LC-2 diesel electric locomotives, 1986 10 General Electric U15C diesel electric locomotives, 1990 8 General Motors Model diesel electric, 2017 In December 2014 Botswana Railways announced that they would purchase three generator vans, five first class sleepers, 18 economy class coaches, five business class coaches, three buffet cars and a luggage van.
Botswana Railways run 2 nightly passenger tains, one from Lobatse to Francistown, the other from Francistown to Lobatse, with stops in Gaborone, Mahalapye and Serule. The passenger train is termed the "BR Express". In Botswana, the "BR Express" has a commuter train between Gaborone; the train is scheduled to arrive at Gaborone in 0649 hrs. This train will return to Lobatse in well departing in Gaborone at 1800 hrs. Arrival time at Lobatse is 1934hrs; the train stops at Otse and Commerce Park Halt. Botswana Railways are connected to South African lines, both using the same gauge. There is no direct connection with Namibia, but one does exist via South Africa, although an electrified railway connecting to Lüderitz in Namibia for coal traffic was scheduled to open in 2006. In August 2010, Mozambique and Botswana signed a memorandum of understanding to develop an 1100 km railway through Zimbabwe, to carry coal from Serule in Botswana to a deep-water port at Techobanine Point in Mozambique. A new rail link between Botswana and Zambia, bypassing Zimbabwe, was mooted in 2005 by Botswana Railways general manager Andrew Lunga.
The line was envisaged as running south-westwards from Livingstone, crossing the Zambezi continuing to a junction with the existing BR tracks at Mosetse. Lunga's proposal arose following the serious loss of traffic suffered by BR following the opening of the Beitbridge-Bulawayo line, after which annual BR freight tonnage fell from 1.1m per annum to about 150,000. Zimbabwe's economic problems had worsened the situation; the suggested line, Lunga pointed out, would provide important alternative routes linking South Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Botswana Rail in Pictures Transport in Botswana Botswana Railways
Gaborone
Gaborone is the capital and largest city of Botswana with a population of 231,626 based on the 2011 census, about 10% of the total population of Botswana. Its agglomeration is home to 421,907 inhabitants at the 2011 census. Gaborone City, is situated between Kgale and Oodi Hills, near the confluence Notwane River and Segoditshane River in the south-eastern corner of Botswana, 15 kilometres from the South African border; the city is served by the Sir Seretse Khama International Airport. It is an administrative district in its own right, but is the capital of the surrounding South-East District. Locals refer to the city as Gabs; the city of Gaborone is named after Chief Gaborone of the Tlokwa tribe, who once controlled land nearby. Because it had no tribal affiliation and was close to fresh water, the city was planned to be the capital in the mid-1960s when the Bechuanaland Protectorate became an independent nation; the centre of the city is a long strip of commercial businesses, called the Mall, with a semicircle-shaped area of government offices to its west.
Gaborone is one of the fastest-growing cities in the world, this has created problems with housing and illegal settlements. The city has dealt with conflicts spilling into the country from Zimbabwe and South Africa during the 1980s. Gaborone is the economic capital as well as the government capital. Gaborone is home to the Southern African Development Community, a regional economic community established in 1980. Many languages are spoken there, Setswana being the main tongue. English and Kgalagadi are spoken. Evidence shows. In more recent history, the Tlokwa left the Magaliesberg ranges to settle in the area around 1880, called the settlement Moshaweng; the word "Gaborone" means "it does not fit badly" or "it is not unbecoming". The city was called "Gaberones" by early European settlers. Gaberones, a shortening of "Gaborone's Village", was named after Chief Gaborone of the Tlokwa, whose home village was across the river from the Government Camp, the name of the colonial government headquarters.
The nickname, "GC", comes from the name "Government Camp". In 1890, Cecil John Rhodes picked Gaberones to house a colonial fort; the fort was. The city changed its name from Gaberones to Gaborone in 1969; the modern town was only founded in 1964, after a decision was taken to establish a capital for Botswana, which became a self governing territory in 1965, before becoming a independent republic at independence in September 30, 1966. In 1965, the capital of the Bechuanaland Protectorate moved from Mafeking to Gaberones; when Botswana gained its independence, Lobatse was the first choice as the nation's capital. However, Lobatse was deemed too limited, instead, a new capital city would be created next to Gaberones; the city was chosen because of its proximity to a fresh water source, its proximity to the railway to Pretoria, its central location among the central tribes, its lack of association with those surrounding tribes. The city was planned under Garden city principles with open spaces. Building of Gaborone started in mid-1964.
During the city's construction, the chairman of Gaberones Township Authority, Geoffrey Cornish, likened the layout of the city to a “brandy glass” with the government offices in the base of the glass and businesses in the “mall”, a strip of land extending from the base. Most of the early town was built within three years, as a small town designed to accommodate 20 000 people- only to develop after independence into a modern city. Buildings in early Gaborone include assembly buildings, government offices, a power station, a hospital, schools, a radio station, a telephone exchange, police stations, a post office, more than 1,000 houses; because the town was built so there was a massive influx of labourers who had built illegal settlements on the new city's southern industrial development zone. These settlements were named Naledi; the latter term means "the star", but could mean "under the open sky" or "a community that stands out from all others". In 1971, because of the growth of illegal settlements, the Gaborone Town Council and the Ministry of Local Government and Lands surveyed an area called Bontleng, which would contain low-income housing.
However, Naledi still grew, the demand for housing was greater than ever. In 1973, the Botswana Housing Corporation built a "New Naledi" across the road from the "Old Naledi". Residents from Old Naledi would be moved to New Naledi. However, the demand for housing increased yet again; the problem was solved in 1975 when Sir Seretse Khama, the president of Botswana, rezoned Naledi from an industrial zone to a low-income housing area. On 30 September 1966, Bechuanaland became the eleventh British dependency in Africa to become independent; the first mayor of Gaborone was Reverend Derek Jones. The old Gaberones became a suburb of the new Gaborone, is now known as "the Village". In the mid-1980s, South Africa attacked Botswana and conducted raids on Gaborone and other border towns; the Raid on Gaborone resulted in twelve deaths. After the 1994 General Elections, riots started in Gaborone because of high unemployment and other issues. Today, Gaborone is growing rapidly. In 1964, Gaborone only had 3,855 citizens.
The city planned on 20,000 citizens, but by 1992, the city had 138,000 people. This has led to many
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