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.
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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.

John Batwell, who was the Editor of the latest Sandstone book, sadly passed away recently. John was a personal friend of mine and a major contributor to railway preservation in Southern Africa. He was an acknowledged expert on Rhodesia Railways and its locomotives as well as a senior editor at SA Rail magazine. John also covered preservation matters with Railways Africa magazine. He edited a number of books on railways and was my first choice to edit Sandstone’s second book, The Sandstone Steam Railway, the story continues. John had retired from teaching at Redhill School in Johannesburg some time ago.

John had not been well for some time but was pleased to take on the task. We spent over four months from late 2021 into 2022 having weekly meetings and finally we had a finished manuscript. John’s attention to detail was impressive and he certainly added immense value to the quality of presentation in the book. As time progressed I could see and feel  that his health was failing and after a short bout of pneumonia  he  passed away peacefully in late August. He did, however, see the finished product of the Sandstone book as he was presented with one of the first copies from the print run. I  was extremely pleased that he did see the results of his hard work. My thoughts and condolences are with his widow, Pam.

His memory will stay with me and the Sandstone book is a fitting tribute to his skills.

John Batwell (seated) and author, David Richardson take a look at the final proof copy of the new Sandstone book.

A Sandstone Wetland

For the first time in memory our small  wetland  next to the main complex has been full for the winter months.
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