Heritage Railway Magazine has given us a boost for our Easter event!
Sandstone’s latest book gets a positive review at The Railway Magazine.
The Railway Magazine, (https://www.railwaymagazine.co.uk) is the top selling rail title in the UK and has been published continuously since 1897. We were pleased to receive a most positive review of our recently published book, “The Sandstone Steam Railway, the story continues” World News editor, Keith Fender, who is familiar with Sandstone, described the book as “very highly recommended”.
Father and son, Harry and John Illsley, who donated the BM Volvo tractor to Sandstone early in 2022, have now made another very special donation to Sandstone, a Boer War Scotch Cart.
Interestingly, according to various online dictionaries, the name Scotch-cart is of South African origin and is defined as a small two-wheeled cart of southern Africa with a detachable or slanting panel at the back.
The name may have a connection with the design being thought to have originated in Scotland. With its Boer War military origin, this Scotch Cart will become a welcome addition to the Sandstone Military Collection.
The stock list has been updated to reflect operational loco changes after the boiler inspections of January 2023.
We thought we would feature this spectacular picture of the mountain above Vailima Siding with Soutkop in the back ground, to its left, just because it is such a stunning photograph. The larger mountain is affectionately referred to as “Sandstone Mountain” but is known as Twalaboholo by the locals!
We hope you enjoy it. Picture by Mr Wilfred Mole.
As most people are aware, Sandstone Estates, the home of the Sandstone Heritage Collection, is a working commercial farm with a variety of crops, one of which is wheat. The weather lately, in the Eastern Free State of South Africa has been plagued by heavy rains which has made harvesting the wheat quite challenging. As is often the case vehicles from the Heritage Collection are brought in to assist. Our sunset photo gallery shows our 1990 Kenworth truck with the trailer for the harvested grain plus the ex-British military HET Tank Tractor on standby duties to haul the IH combine out of difficulty in the very damp ground with the Kenworth in the final picture ready for unloading at the farm silos.
Why is the Eastern Free State lekker?
Frans Cronje who promotes the "Why is the Eastern Free State Lekker?" website (featured on our website in January 2022) has produced a video of some of the events at the recent Cherry Festival in Ficksburg. Sandstone Estates features in this video. https://youtu.be/5du9JYUHUUM
10CR number 771 is one of the main 3’6” gauge displays next to Hoekfontein Station. Built in 1910, by North British of Glasgow, the loco spent its early life working commuter passenger trains between Johannesburg and Springs before being transferred to main line work at Kimberley. The locomotive ended its days at Lorraine Gold Mine before being purchased by Sandstone in the late 90s. Having spent some its life at Sandstone in a non-original red livery the locomotive is now receiving a coat of black paint while its accompanying caboose is repainted in red.
