Padlangs - Manni Goldbeck
Most visitors to Namibia’s popular coastal town are familiar with the old steam locomotive named ‘Martin Luther’ that is enclosed in a glass structure on its outskirts. It was imported into the country in the late 1800s for the purpose of transporting freight that arrived by ship inland through the Namib Desert. The arduous, waterless 100km stretch was a challenge by ox-wagon, which before the advent of the railway was the only method to convey heavy loads.
I recently discovered that a colleague’s great-great-uncle, Max Corleis, had been in the ox-wagon business and had transported his goods on the steam locomotive. In Max’s notes he recorded how he had met Edmund Troost in Hamburg and again on his steamship ‘Leutwein’. Troost had served with the Schutztruppe (German colonial troops) in the country from 1894 to 1896, achieving the rank of lieutenant. As a man of independent means, he concentrated on self-funded innovations, many of which were shelved by the colonial government. He is said to have introduced diesel machines in 1904 at his own cost and in 1896 imported the ‘heavy duty steam vehicle’. On the ship, Troost proudly took out the drawings of the new steam locomotive. He shared his grand plan to improve transport along the arid route from the coast that was perilous to the oxen. Without sufficient grazing and water, they often perished along the way. The steam locomotive and its wagon trailers were fitted with wide wheels to prevent them sinking into the sand and each of the trailers was said to be able to carry the freight of five ox-wagons. Troost’s steam locomotive or tractor was the ideal solution to Max’s transport challenge to cross the sandy stretch through the desert from Swakopmund.
The steam-driven traction engine was built in Leeds in the UK by J & H McLaren, purchased through the McLaren agents FR Dehne in Halberstadt, Germany, and shipped from Hamburg to Swakopmund. (Another source says that it was manufactured by the Fowler Company of California.) Due to its great weight, it was impossible to offload the 14-ton steam tractor in Swakopmund, so it continued to Walvis Bay harbour. Troost was delayed for several months in Cape Town and during that period the engine driver, hired to operate the locomotive, returned to Europe. It took three months for the locomotive to traverse the 30km to Swakopmund through the dune and beach sand and requirements included large quantities of coal and fresh water. Soon after its arrival, it began its maiden journeys inland via Nonidas to Heigamchab to meet up with the ox-wagons awaiting their goods, saving them the worst part of the trip through the desert.
Max describes how he was waiting in the desert when a plume of black smoke rose from the desert sands. His workers screamed in horror, pointing to it. As the locomotive and its three trailers became visible and drew nearer, the sight was so unusual and frightening that one of his workers jumped off the ox-wagon and ran away. The others would soon have followed if Max hadn’t begun to laugh, explaining that the apparition wasn’t a ghost but a steam engine from Germany that had delivered his goods across the desert. He called it ‘Dampfochse’, a ‘steam ox’, and the name stuck.
With that cleared up, eventually everyone’s curiosity won over and they dared approach it. The journey was a success, Max had his freight and could even water his animals in the desert. Unfortunately for him, the steam ox would bring his freight through the desert only once more before the end of its short lifespan. The original engineer had returned to Germany before Troost had taken delivery of his machine and there was no other mechanic with the necessary skills to maintain and repair the locomotive. By the time an expert arrived from Germany months later, the damage had been done and some essential parts had been removed. Troost was so annoyed that he left the locomotive where it stood, several kilometres east of central Swakopmund.
When Max was next in town, he was chatting to local residents at the Hotel Fürst Bismarck when a Dr Rhode asked them if they had heard that the steam ox had been named Martin Luther. When they replied that they hadn’t, he laughed and replied “Because now it can also say ‘Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise!’ (as protestant reformer Martin Luther was credited with saying – ‘Hier stehe ich. Ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir. Amen’). The doctor continued to tell his joke to everyone who visited. Before long the steam ox became known as ‘Martin Luther’.
The outbreak of rinderpest, decimating cattle and oxen, reached the country in 1897, severely impacting ox-wagon transport and hastening the construction of a narrow-gauge railway line from Swakopmund, which reached Karibib in 1899 and Windhoek in 1902, making the steam locomotive redundant.
It remained on the edge of town, a hulk of rusting iron, for over seventy years, until in 1973 the Swakopmund Town Council decided to restore it, adding a new smoke box and front wheels. In 2003/2004 students from the Namibian Institute of Mining and Technology (NIMT) restored it to its former glory, rebuilding the engine as close as possible to its original design in a practical exercise that took over a year. The Martin Luther was proclaimed a national monument and a glass structure built around it to protect it from the corrosive coastal mist.
Although its desert journeys were short-lived, the Martin Luther ‘steam-ox’ has become a historic monument by virtue of its time spent in the Namib and the brief part it played to bridge the gap of inadequate transport in the challenging terrain more than a century ago. Underpinning it all, and perhaps at the heart of it all, is the dream of a visionary who took it upon himself to relieve the distressing situation he witnessed in the name of civilisation and progress.