The Parish Magazine March 2023

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16 The Parish Magazine - March 2023 Please mention The Parish Magazine when responding to advertisements The Window Cleaner • Interior & exterior • All windows, frames, sills & doors • Conservatory cleaning • Fully insured We provide a reliable, professional service, ensuring that your home will sparkle. For a free quote call or email 07967 004426 thewindowcleaner1@googlemail.com Whatever you want to store... ...for whatever reason - house sale and purchase not coinciding, travelling, house building work, paperwork overload or even “de-cluttering” to sell your house more quickly - we offer a friendly and flexible local service. With competitive rates, secure storage and hassle free 24/7 access, contact us now! 0118 940 4163 www.barn-store.co.uk Only 5 minutes from Henley on the Reading road! 24 hours service | Private client parking | Private chapel of rest Free home visits | Pre-paid funeral plans | Full written estimate Woodland funerals | Religious and non-religious services Tel: 01491 573370 www.tomalins.co.uk tomalin@btconnect.com Anderson House, 38 Reading Road, Henley-On-Thames, RG9 1AG A Family Run Independent Funeral Service WATER SOFTENER SALT Block Salt From £6.00* Tablet Salt from £13.00* Winter Gritting Salt from £7.00* FREE LOCAL DELIVERY Email: Martyncollins@portmanpm.com FOR OFFERS & PRICES ORDER ON LINE AT www.salt-deliveries-online.com Tel: 0778 577 2263 or 0118 959 1796 Unit 2, 6 Portman Road Reading RG30 1EA *Prices subject to change - please check our website
feature — 2 A real Brazilian home from home In the late 1950s I was a foreman fitter responsible for maintenance of cranes and machines operated by George Wimpey, a large civil engineering contractor that today is in a house building partnership with Taylor Woodrow. As part of the overseas department, I had completed a 2 year contract in Kuwait, as well as some local work in the UK. I was then asked to go to Brazil in January 1960 and the next 4 years became the most interesting of my early life — I was 29 years old. I was to be in charge of the rock drill department on Wimpey's hydro electric dam project in Furnas, Minas Gerais, but the 2 year contract was extended to 4 years after a fatal explosion in one of the tunnels that diverted the Rio Grande River while the dam was being built. However, this was not a problem for me because my hobby was, and still is, studying, and modelling, foreign railways — Brazil had plenty to interest me! I had 2 weeks local leave each year which I spent travelling around the states of Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais on the many railways that operated there. DIVERSION In 1962, my brother-in-law, a master mariner whom I had not met, was to be in Santos on his way home from a voyage in the Pacific. It was a good opportunity to meet him, and see Santos, one of Brazil's main ports, so I arranged to travel to Sao Paulo and go by train to Santos. But, as soon as everything was in place, the owner diverted John's ship to Cape Town so we did not meet. However, I decided to carry on and took a Mogiana Railway The Furnas hydroelectric dam in Brazil. train to Sao Paulo. After a night's rest, I got a local, four car train on the Santos -Jundiai railroad to Santos, a trip of about 80 miles. Brazil's Atlantic coast has a curious geographical feature of a narrow flat plain all the way from Bahia in the north to Santa Catarina in the south, a distance of about 1,200 miles. It varies from being 10 miles wide to about 50. On the inland or western side of this plain is a steep rise to the central plateau and in the Santos area the rise is a steep escarpment about 800m high. The railways from the various Atlantic port cities had to climb this, usually on special track rails or by zigzag inclines. INCLINED PLANES Luckily, inland from Santos there was a narrow rising valley which could possibly be the route of a railroad but it would have to be a funicular (cable) with rope haulage due to the steep gradient needed to climb 800m in the horizontal distance of 10.5km. I had read of this railroad but never thought that one day I would ride along it. It had a series of five inclined planes each ending in a short level section or 'patamar' in Portuguese. Under each patamar was a 1,000hp The Parish Magazine - March 2023 17 By Michael Ingram Roberto Epifanio Da Silva, dreamstime.com steam engine serving one of the five inclines. A descending train stopped at a station named Paranapiacicaba and was broken up into sets of two 50 ton cars and was moved to the head of the rope on the level patamar by a steam locomotive. GRIPPERS This was similar to a UK guard's van and 20 of these were built in Britain by Robert Stevenson in Darlington. Called a 'Grip', their task was to grip the rope so they could be taken down at the speed that the rope moved at. They could also work as a locomotive to move each pair of 50 ton cars onto the rope. Grips were powerful enough to move, at slow speed, two cars onto the next lower rope at each patamar. The cars in use on the Santos-Jundiai line were used for both passenger and freight trains. The track had only three rails between the patamars but four rails on the patamar to allow climbing and descending trains to pass. As the descending, or ascending, grip and its two cars reached the level patamar the loco dropped the rope and pulled the two cars to the end of turn to page 19 Sao Paulo station. Rodrigo Loureiro, dreamstime.com Santos-Jundiai railroad tracks. Nandobrasil, dreamstime.com
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Page 3 and 4: Serving the communities of Charvil,
Page 5 and 6: The Parish Magazine - March 2023 5
Page 7 and 8: the parish noticeboard — 1 Notice
Page 9 and 10: from page 8 the parish noticeboard
Page 11 and 12: the parish noticeboard — 4 Who in
Page 13 and 14: the parish noticeboard — 5 30,000
Page 15: feature — 1 The 60 million year o
Page 19 and 20: feature — 3 the patamar as a loco
Page 21 and 22: THE WOODS WITH US The Parish Magazi
Page 23 and 24: around the villages — 1 The Paris
Page 25 and 26: around the villages — 2 Rob's hug
Page 27 and 28: HOME AND GARDEN Spring cleaning? Ne
Page 29 and 30: THE ARTS — 1 Spring — the birth
Page 31 and 32: THE ARTS — 2 Book Reviews Hope fo
Page 33 and 34: HEALTH — 1 Dr Simon Ruffle writes
Page 35 and 36: CROSSWORD 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 9 10 11 12
Page 37 and 38: CHILDREN'S PAGE The Parish Magazine
Page 39 and 40: Please mention The Parish Magazine

The Parish Magazine March 2023

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