The past week we have washed out 6 Locomotive boilers, our Class NGG 16 number 153, the Barclay, Peckett, O&K 2510, O&K 4102 and O&K 10311.

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During the last week we had 4 train trips on the Sandstone Steam Railway. Last Saturday we steamed our Lawley For the 80th Birthday of Liz Hindle’s father and had a short trip to Grootdraai and back.

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25 July 2016
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The front tank has now been fitted and work has begun on the mechanical lubricator, sanders and cylinder drain cocks. The number plates have also arrived from the manufacturer plus the works plates. As was the practice of Beyer Peacock at the time (1919) there is no works number shown. Not long to go now!
Photography by Lukas Nel

We now have started full time with the earthmoving work that is needed before we can construct the new 2,49Km tracks. Des and his people did a excellent job this week in widening the dam wall as well as opening the road through the Forest.

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A number of DZ's have been taken out of our salvage yard and are being restored to full operating condition. In addition two more open passenger units are being completed to bring our consist up to four. These are typically used with our little Decauville, Bathala, and our Kerr Stuart locomotive, Little Bess. We have been a bit light with regard to proper DZ consists and we have had inadequate passenger coach accommodation for the small locomotives.

Wren Locos

By Robin Lake in South Africa 

There are a couple of tenuous leads pointing to the possibility of Kerr, Stuart & Co Ltd “Wren” class locomotives being used on the fourteen kilometre long 60 cm gauge service line laid from Brits West to Hartbeespoort Dam during the building of the latter over 1918-1925.

In 1921 the Director of Irrigation reported that in March of that year two steam locomotives were secured “from the Air Force Authorities” for use on the line. 

From KS records we know that four Wrens were consigned to “SAR Delagoa Bay” (no date given but before 1930), namely works numbers 4006, 4013, 4014 and 4015. This is gleaned from a manuscript entry alongside these numbers in the KS engine register. However, the KS shipping specification ledgers bear no evidence of such a consignment. This suggests that some party other than KS arranged the export of these four Wrens.

The team from Flint Construction will be back for 4-months laying additional lines and repairing sections that are not entirely up to specification.  They started work laying storage lines into the new section of the 2-ft Narrow Gauge storage building which is now very substantial.  We will in fact have far more accommodation than we have items to put under cover but no doubt the inventory will change over time.

Our ability to continue with our track laying programme is entirely due to the close cooperation we receive from Transnet with regard to the purchase of surplus Narrow Gauge turnouts from the Port Shepstone yard that is currently being dismantled.

Update from Lukas Nel – 30 July 2012

We beat all the tube ends in the firebox and intend to start the hydraulic testing of the boiler on 2^nd August. We set one week aside to complete the hydraulic testing of the boiler. We still need to replace the smoke box front of the locomotive boiler and fit the smoke box door before we can start repairs to the faulty injectors and the bad slipping of the locomotive.

Below are two photos of the finished product of the beating of the tube ends of the firebox side of the boiler.

Simultaneously with the major NGG11 restoration  work continues on the Avonside No. 1624.

The photographs below show the broken frames which are being rebuilt.  Both of them are badly damaged and bent.

NGG11, No. 54 was moved to the Sandstone Heritage Trust for safekeeping.  We have had good support from people around the world who have previous recollections of this locomotive and who have taken photographs of it.  Here are some excellent pictures sent to us by John Middleton to whom we are indebted for his assistance.
 

Gary Barnes has supplied the following pictures of what the loco was like shortly before it went to SANRASM. Like most things they touched it was all downhill from there.

We have had tremendous support from Karlheinz Rohrwild and other members of the Feldbahn Museum.  See: www.feldbahn500.de.

With respect to locomotive No. 12691, Karlheinz sent us the following information: 

From: Rohrwild, Karlheinz [mailto:This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.]
Sent: 29 June 2011 09:11
Subject: AW: Bloem.SANRASM O&K Locomotive 

Here are the O&K plates over the years. Take a look at the second last in the middle row.

Resulting from discussions with the Apple Express and with HRASA the lend/lease loco, NGG11, No. 54, has arrived from Port Elizabeth on two of Sandstone's low beds. The object of the exercise is to place this locomotive in safe, undercover, dry storage in the non-humid environment of the Eastern Free State. Engineering work will be carried out on the locomotive to ensure that the extensive rust that has reduced this locomotive to a very unsatisfactory state is arrested immediately.

Terry O'Connor, one of our web site visitors, kindly sent us the following information on No. 88:

From: Terry O'Connor [mailto:This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.]
Sent: 10 May 2010 22:51
Subject: NG/G16 No.88 in 1976

Hi there,

No. 88

Having visited your Sandstone Heritage website, & seen that 'NG/G16 88' is undergoing refurbishment, I recalled having seen & photographed this particular NG G16 at Port Shepstone.

There is a low-res version of an image attached here. It is 'Photoshopped' from one of my 33-year old transparencies.