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Sandstone played host to the International Police Association (IPA)-Free State National Council meeting recently. The IPA has been in existence for over 60 years and has a membership of 420,000 members worldwide. In South Africa the IPA branch was started 37 years ago but the National Council meeting was being held in the Free State for the first time. Although attending a four day meeting event, the IPA is a non-profit organisation with a goal of outreach to charitable organisations as well as visiting some places of interest. At Sandstone our Team hosted the 46 strong IPA group as well as 16 children from David’s Place in Ficksburg. David’s Place is a children’s home and NGO that relies on donations for its good work. The children and the IPA guests were treated to a train ride plus an Ox wagon ride. At the close of the visit the IPA presented each of the children from David’s Place with a gift hamper, which included clothing. A most welcome donation for the children. All in all, a wonderful day out for the IPA and the children from David’s Place, Sandstone salutes the International Police Association South Africa for their good work!

Our gallery shows a selection of the day’s activities.
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Some changes at Sandstone Steam Railway

The very heavy rains experienced during the latter part of 2021 and into 2022 severely damaged the Mountain Section of the railway. This is the section from Vailima Siding which looped around the area of the Farm School below the Sandstone mountain and re-joined the line at Pandora Junction. As this section sees very limited use and suffered damage on a regular basis from inclement weather, it was decided to lift the section from Vailima Siding around to Pandora Junction. As much as we regret having to do doing this the constant repairs required from weather damage were excessive.

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As the Cherry Steam Festival approaches in November our Oxen span have been out in training with NGG16A number 155! Click here for a short video.

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Vintage Spirit Magazine.

The UK magazine, Vintage Spirit, features the forthcoming Cherry Festival event at Sandstone in its latest issue by Peter Brockington who visited our Stars of Sandstone 2019 event. Also featured is a review of the new book on Sandstone, The Sandstone Steam railway-the story continues.
Click here and enjoy the read

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Maintaining the permanent way is one of the key elements in running a railway and Sandstone is no exception. It is an ongoing task that sometimes seems to be never ending. It also falls under the scrutiny of the South African Railway Safety Regulator (RSR) and is one of the major elements in their regular inspections. Of course as we are 2ft Narrow Gauge which does not really feature on the South African railway system any more, apart from Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth), although there no trains have run for a very long time. This often raises questions of specifications for track standards. We have had much debate with the RSR to explain that we do not run at normal Transnet speeds but at a much lower speed! We have established, after much discussion, that we maintain our track to Transnet branch line standards.