Staging events at Sandstone Estates in the Eastern Free State is becoming more difficult. This is due to the state of the roads which make the coach tour operators reluctant to visit us. People with ordinary cars have to also drive very carefully due to the serious potholes. However certainly as far as our South African market is concerned people are robust and if they want to come they certainly turn up.
This prestigious UK magazine features an article on Sandstone’s collection of military vehicles in its issue for March 22. Click here to read the article
An important travel advisory to all our visitors for the Sandstone Easter Steam event regarding road conditions in the Sandstone area of the eastern Free State
We would like to advise you, that due to lack of maintenance by the Provincial Government in the Free State, that the road between Fouriesburg and Sandstone is in very poor condition with many potholes. There are sections of it where one has to be extremely careful and go at extremely low speeds to prevent damage to your vehicle. Other roads in the area to Ficksburg and Sandstone are also in poor condition and should be driven with caution.
This is not a problem if people are aware of it in advance and of course it might add 15 minutes to your trip but we did want to ask you to be very alert and take care on your journey to the Sandstone Easter event.
Our 1914 Peerless 4 ton truck has been despatched to the UK for the construction of a correct cab and body work it would have carried during its service in WW1.
You can read the full article here.
The recent moves of our 3’6” gauge locomotives from the Transnet properties at Germiston and Bloemfontein made worldwide headlines with the clever logistics used by the contractors, Mercor Transport and P.Munro Transport. The clever usage of large lowbed trailers as loading ramps for the multi axle trailers used for some of the locomotives enabled us to load the two GMA/M Beyer Garratt locomotives, numbers 4079 and 4114, without using a very expensive crane and splitting them into their three units (font engine unit, boiler unit and rear engine unit) as was done in the past. This also saved a massive amount of work to reassemble the locos on their arrival at Sandstone.
To celebrate the moves, Sandstone commissioned Ron and Val Nell of Frameline Productions to produce a video programme of the logistics and activities required for moving these giants and the other locomotives. Some of the loads were amongst the heaviest road movements ever undertaken in South Africa. You can access the production on You Tube on the following link.
As a bonus to this video we also include a link to a short production on our November 2021 Cherry Festival event produced by Steven Mitchell.
The link is Sandstone Cherry Festival 2021 - YouTube