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
Gert Jubileus, the Sandstone Railway Manager, has been hard at work with his track gang preparing the railway for the Easter event. A major task was the replacement of the sleepers on the points at the exit of Hoekfontein Station towards Grootdraai. Our gallery shows the new points in position and the Funkey diesel in action as the track gang spreads the ballast which has been delivered in our vintage rake of cocopans.
We often feature Sandstone locomotives on our site but here is a short photo article on the wagon types that can be found at Sandstone.
All have been sourced from now defunct narrow gauge systems in South Africa and total over a 100 wagons of various types.
We have also included in this story the South African Railways Narrow Gauge Wagon Diagram Book so that you can have a look at even greater detail of the types. As you will see each type often has many derivatives, the DZ wagon, for example, has 9 versions but only 4 of these are left in existence.
Our current stock list lists the total of each type with numbers that we have.
You can access the stock list on: The Sandstone Stock List. (sandstone-estates.com)
Click here to view the Wagons PDF
Click here to view the SA Railways Narrow Guage Wagon Diagram Book
As excitement builds for our Sandstone Easter Steam Festival we are working hard to bring other attractions into the limelight. Our oxen are well known but our donkeys and mules less so. We hope that they will be out and about as much as possible during the show. We obviously consider their welfare as a priority but they seem to enjoy it and we believe they are looking forward to it.
Military vehicles, vintage tractors, a traction engine or two and old trucks and buses are all part of the line-up plus, of course, the world famous 2ft narrow gauge Sandstone Steam Railway.
We look forward to seeing you on the farm.