RN332 - Saturday at Sandstone - First of the photos by Errol Ashwell

Errol Ashwell, one of our great supporters and somebody who knows how to make a mean photograph, recently spent a day with us. He sent the following note and we are able to elaborate as follows:

Our little Feldbahn is one of the most charismatic 2-ft narrow gauge locomotives we have. It always looks good and above all it works well, very well. It is a testament to the quality of Lukas Nel's engineering talent that this absolutely derelict locomotive was pulled out of a muddy field somewhere in England, brought back to South Africa and restored to this condition. The following pictures tell their own story.

There will be a substantial amount of publicity surrounding the NG4 in the weeks to come. It caused a great buzz of excitement and once again it performed beautifully over the weekend. Just to remind us of what it looked like, Errol sent us these photographs of it taken at Port Shepstone not that long ago.

Finally, we have NGG 155 which is a gas convertor narrow gauge locomotive. Unfortunately, like so many of these loco restorations, this is causing some acrimony. Firstly, due to the fact the boiler was operated without water it is badly damaged and it cannot be repaired. Therefore we need to reboiler this loco if it is to be restored. Secondly, if we did restore, do we restore it as a gas convertor or as a conventional Garratt? The debate continues.