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Steam Loco Safari Tours Photos and Report
Malmesbury - Bellville 17th June 2002
| It was just like the old days, with 3153 shunting and
marshalling the load for the trip back to Bellville, 2916 taking
water and oil before turning on the triangle. 3153 eventually
marshalled a huge load, consisting of a feeder tank, 7xFZJ, 3xFGLJ,
5xFZJ, 2xDZ, 2 x suburban, and a crew caboose, quite a mixed train!
3153 hauled the lot out of the station for the cameras before 2916
coupled on for the run home. A couple of runpasts were held in the
station area before they hit the main line. A nice country setting between Malmesbury and Abbotsdale was the site of the next runpast. The double F's looked fantastic roaring up the hill with their nice load. As they set up for their shot, some of the passengers may have noticed a strange sight... Down in the corner of the far paddock was a plastic water tank on a trailer, and three gricers were standing nearby waiting for the train to come back. One of them climbed up on to the trailer, and another one tried to but unfortunately the trailer, being only single axle with the tank evenly balanced in the middle, tipped a bit, enough to send the tank sliding off the back. The poor guys watched as the tank slid off the trailer, through the fence and tipped its contents out down the hill... And 300 cows went over to look. But anyway, the main attraction was the double-headed F's belting back up the hill, but the sun proved a bit elusive once again. The runpast was done a few times with various degrees of success sun-wise, the only time it really came out was when the train pulled away after everyone was back on board! The sun then persisted all the way to Kalbaskraal (no runpasts in this section) - I noticed that the Saldanha junction has now had the triangular leg put back in, allowing through running of trains from Malmesbury to Saldanha without reversing at Kalbaskraal. The final runpast was near Wintervogel, again missing the sun :-( but it was still a great sight. We managed a final shot at Fisantkraal, the two F's really belting along by then after which we left the train. All pictures Copyright © 2002 Trevor Staats |
 Malmesbury Departure
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