Highlights: Volksrust to Bethal with 19D, Burgesdorp/Rosmead area with 15AR, Industrial action including 11 class at Tavistock Colliery, Bethlehem Line, Carolina branch with GMA, Vryburg to Mafeking with GMA and 19D.
This is all from super 8 sound with various cameras. I tended to use a ground microphone so as not to get camera noise. Reels of cine film put together in no particular order. 4 more cine videos to come.
Thank you for sharing this with the rest of the world. This brings lot of memories as I grew up around railways in the 60s and 70s, especially with the 25 condensers in the Karoo.
On the 5th reel to yet be published I got some not very good footage of what I was told was the last condensor on freight work between de Aar and Kimberley. I think that was in 1977 on my first visit to South Africa.
Thank you. I know that condensers were converted to non-condensers (87 out of 90 built) between 1973 and 1980, so your footage might be of the last ones before conversion. One of the three that remained was still running in 1991 but I think it is now rusting in peace in Kimberley. @@simonleppardchinasteamvide7563
Thank you for asking. Will try to keep this short, but was born in Victoria West in 1964. My father worked for Plasser from 1963 to 1996. He was a fitter on tamping machines in those days. Not long after, we moved to the Swartland where I can remember being around and on the railway lines with him. Moved to Beaufort West around 1968 still going with my father working around places like De Put, Merriman, Leeu Gamka etc. I started school in Beaufort in 1971 but by this time he was a supervisor. That same year we moved to De Aar which was very busy. His cousin was a driver there, doing the steel Kyalami to Kimberley. In 1973 we moved to Johannesburg where he became factory manager. After a short while he became a regional manager and I would still spend time during school holidays with him visiting machines. I must add my grandfather was a checker at the goods shed in Estcourt so my brother and I spent many holidays with him there playing on the tracks and on wagons except when the locomotive entered the yard. The driver once let me drive the steamer for about 50 meters, I think I was 11. Also, every morning just after 09:00, the Estcourt - Weenen narrow gauge would pass by his little office on the other side of the lines, always getting a friendly wave from the driver. Matriculated in 1982 and went into the field of ballistics and has been in Pretoria since 1983. My heart still yearns for the Karoo, took a bike trip down there in 2009 and was seriously saddened to see the demise of the little stations and the once very busy De Aar station desolate and dilapidated. @@tardis9326
@jmcvlam thank you so much for sharing that with me. Yes it is heartbreaking to see our beloved karoo and rail network in such a sad state. As I sit here in the UK this morning, writing and reminiscing about all those special places
