Sandstone Heritage Trust - Rail News
RN 1 - April '04 - Sandstone continues the transportation of 2-ft narrow diesels and steam locomotives from Beirra
In cooperation with Sena Sugar, the Sandstone Heritage Trust acquired a broad cross-section of locomotives, spare parts, machine tools and rolling stock and other items. Some of these have now been moved to Beira and the exercise of moving them to the Sandstone Heritage Trust site in the Eastern Free State has commenced.
Two of the company's Freightliners with low beds, driven by Leon Flynn and Willem de Klerk, recently made the long and arduous trip to Beira. The total distance was 2587 kilometres. It took 10 days and 1354 litres of diesel were consumed at a total of R4522.00, at a total of around 1.91 Litres per Km.
The transportation of these items was something of an experiment because one of the 0-6-0 Pecketts had already been shipped late last year by sea from Beira to Durban where it was collected.
The cost effectiveness of the operation was measured, and it has been decided to arrange a combination of sea and road for the rest of the haulage programme.
The remaining items, some of which are featured in the attached photographs, will move by sea to the Port of Maputo where they will be collected by the company's heavy vehicles and then transported to the Eastern Free State. The major reason for this is the state of the roads in the northern sector approaching Beira.
