Other Side of the Tracks

On the other side of the railway tracks of the Lindela Repatriation Centre is the Railway Preservation Centre. Not easy to see from the Krugersdorp and Randfontein main road but you can’t miss the Transnet Mill Site if you do a small detour pass Lindela. In between the long veld grasses you come across these rows and rows of rusting away old steam locomotives.

I was happy as a child in a sandpit on finding this treasure horde of toys but at the same time I felt this heaviness as I walked through the gloomily looking rusting hulks. I noticed most of the steam engines are dating way back to the mid 1920s and one had an old Sappi logo on the side. Now Sappi is a large Forestry company here in South Africa.

Now I am not sure if these locomotives are destined for the scrap metal dealers or they are going to be restored. Some are way too gone and one has been spray painted on the side “FOTR” which stands for Friends of the Rail, and another had "Do not cut - Reef Steamers".

This has been an interesting find on the other side of the track, and its brought back the taste for photo walking.

Gautrain after Eight

Gautrain's tag line is "Dreams Do Come True" and I must say that it does as once again we twitterers managed to get on the Gautrain but this time riding the lines way after the lights out time and was still out speeding along at 160kph after 11pm. Luckily we got back just before our carriages turned into pumpkins at the stroke of midnight. I don't think that the Gautrain will be allowed out again at this time. This historic event was the official launch of Gautrain operations. We first had a wonderful evening of entertainment at Gallagher Estate and after that boarded buses to take us to the depot. Once on board we sped to OR Tambo, Rhodesfield, Marlboro and Sandton Stations and cut ribbons to officially open the stations. There was a big difference between the foreign and local media with the crazy social media group. I was even interviewed by e-TV going 160kph. We had fun as you can see in today's photo is Nicole Flint, Miss South Africa 2009 aka Official_MissSA on twitter, posing with the Gautrain at OR Tambo Station. Thank you Maritha for getting the twitterati onboard

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The ICT Department held their monthly departmental meeting in Pretoria today so off we went on the Tshwane Business Express to Pretoria. As usual I take a number of photos of the different trains, wagons and scenery that I come across along the way. Here is one of Metrorail's 10M5 trains from Pretoria zooming past at speed.

Shosholoza

At Metrorail things are going strangely the wrong direction to where I expected it to go. But never the less, I must hold my head up high and just go against the flow. In today's photo it looks very busy at the Shosholoza Meyl platforms of Park Station.

Small Trains and small boys

Matthew and I went down to Edenvale to visit the 14th SA National Model Railway Convention. We saw some stunning displays like this one shown above. I had also arranged to meet with Craig, a model train builder from Austria. Matthew enjoyed himself even more when he found a comic store nearby.

More Taxis

The Metro Police had sealed the Bree Street Taxi Rank off. What for is anybody's guess. It is most likely another raid although there seems to be two trucks on the ramp with what looks like the Red Ants loading things into the back of the trucks. The Red Ants is the nickname for the company who dress their employees in red overalls and forcefully remove squatters ect. As you can see in today's photo the taxis are queued up as their entrance is blocked.

Mad Metro

I stumbled onto these three train units straight out of the Mad Max movie. They were in a rolling stock shed behind the training centre. I asked around and was told they from the 70s and are still working. The same person said that they were last used in about 2004. How true that is, I don't know. This one looks like a version of a Casspir, land mine protected vehicle, just plopped onto a set rail wheels.