Recently a goods train on its way from Bloemfontein to Maseru de-railed due to the collapse of sections of the rail close to the junction of the line to Lesotho at Marseilles. As one can see from the pictures these trucks were badly damaged and scattered along the railway line. Fortunately most of them were full of maize and a few of them contained wheat which was unceremoniously dumped in the veld. Nu-Pro, a well-respected local grain trading organisation, contacted Sandstone on an emergency basis and asked if we could somehow pick up these commodities and put them into trailers for removal to a nearby grain silo. Fortunately Sandstone has in its mechanisation division a number of Agrivac machines built in Canada. These are custom built machines which operate like giant vacuum cleaners and they can suck up material off of the ground and distribute it through pipes to wherever you want to store it. Within a few hours a team under Josef Mokoroane, our experienced silo manager, assisted by another Sandstone stalwart Poni Ramohloki was on site together with Raymond Hohls from Sandstone. This team completed the entire job in 4 days which resulted in the recovery of some 230 tons of grain.
