Although the use of steam powered machinery is limited worldwide, there is still a great deal of use of such machinery, either mobile or static, in the Heritage arena.

We have made a significant change to one of our favourite attractions at Sandstone!
Seb's Children's Railway, which was originally named after one of the grandsons of a Sandstone Director, underwent a major change recently and was enclosed in a game camp which
has changed the nature of the line.

Marc-Henri Andre, from Switzerland, has been a frequent visitor to Sandstone over the years, particularly to our Stars of Sandstone events. As well as being an accomplished photographer, he is also a talented artist and has produced many sketches of Sandstone scenes and our locomotives. He also produced a number of bespoke calendars for us.

Sandstone’s acquisition of the two Royal Train coaches of 1947 came to the attention of one of our readers, Dr Brian Austin, who is a member of the South African Institute of Electrical Engineers.

We recently received two articles from Stewart Currie at  the RSSA Reef Branch, both from Allan Jorgensen, published many years ago in South African Transport magazine.  “7 Light Rails”, from September 1978, has a piece on the Lawley locomotives of Buzi Sugar, Mozambique, two of which survived in the Peter Rampton collection in the UK.

We recently ran a story about the AY Hoppers we sold to the Wiscasset, Waterville and Farmington Railway (WW&F) and the Edaville Railway in Maine, USA. The units were delivered directly to the WW&F which is some distance from the Edaville Railway. Following on from our previous post (https://www.sandstone-estates.com/index.php/railway-heritage-58/2ft-narrow-gauge/3769-the-usa-rolling-stock-arrives) we received a mail from the Chairman of the WW&F, David Buczkowski, detailing the move of the wagons destined for the Edaville Railway.

David takes up the story:

We recently discovered two coaches from the 1947 Royal Train  of South Africa near Ladybrand.

“Voie Libre” is a French magazine , produced in both French and English editions, for small gauge railway modellers. It is generally accepted as one of the finest magazines in the world on the subject of railway modelling.  The title, “Voie Libre”, literally translated, means “Clear Path”

 OK 11112 Ermyntrude

After a successful gauging test two more locos have been passed to run on Sandstone’s shorter system, Seb’s Railway. These are O&K 0-6-0WT 11112 of 1925, “Ermyntrude” and O&K 0-6-0WT 12140 of 1930, “Anna”. These locomotives along with other locomotives were acquired from Fazenda Tentativa Sugar Estate in Caxito, Angola.

We thought you would enjoy this picture of the smallest locomotive in the Sandstone fleet and the largest. The 1919 built 0-4-0ST “Little Bess” and the 1968 built (and modified in 1990) NGG16A Garratt locomotive number 155. Truly the largest and smallest!

The AY hoppers and SM flat wagons recently supplied by Sandstone to the Wiscasset, Waterville and Farmington Railway and the Edaville Railway in Maine, USA have now arrived on site in Edaville. Our picture gallery shows the stock being unloaded and a first train lashed together for a short trip down the line. The two railways are planning a “South African” day when the stock has been fully  commissioned and we look forward to seeing pictures of that.

Sandstone has just concluded the sale of two AY ballast hoppers to the Wiscasset,Waterville and Farmington Railway in Maine, USA, to assist them with maintaining  their line and a possible extension in the future. You can read the article on this link. https://railfan.com/wwf-to-purchase-narrow-gauge-south-african-ballast-hoppers/

Another Fowler from Mount Edgecombe Sugar Estate, Kwa Zulu-Natal, South Africa. Sandstone’s “Sandy” has a sister!

Click here to read the article.

Sandstone Estates has been the chosen location for numerous film shoots over the years. These have ranged from Feature Films, including a number of “Bollywood” productions, Corporate and launch video productions, Music Videos, International News features and over 130 productions, on our world famous  2ft narrow gauge railway, featured on the YouTube channel.

Railway Historian, John Middleton, is well known to South African railway enthusiasts for his numerous books on South African Railways main line  and Industrial locomotives over the last 30 years or so. His latest book, Industrial Locomotives of South Africa (Volume 1) has been published. This covers the three Cape provinces, Free State (including a Sandstone entry), Kwa-Zulu Natal and North West provinces. It is available as a hardback book (B5 size) has 496 pages, almost 300 photographs (158 in colour) and 40 maps. Volume 2 which should be ready in 2024 (its already in draft form) will cover the rest of the former Transvaal plus Swaziland and Lesotho.The book is a magnificent work of reference and has obviously been part of the author’s life for some time.