Welcome to the Sandstone Estates website! Click on “About Us” to learn more about Sandstone and the Heritage collection.
Please note  we do not accept cash payments at Sandstone, only Debit Cards, Credit Cards, EFT payments & mobile application payments.

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.

https://youtu.be/cUJrVrn3U90  

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.

As part of the moves of our 3’6” gauge locomotives and rolling stock to Sandstone, we committed to placing all the assets under cover. This has now been completed as our pictures show with the two GMAM locomotives, 4114 and 4079, 25NC 3488 and 15F 3052 now safely under cover.

As part of our preparations for our Easter event, the track gang has been hard at work preparing our railway for a busy show. Persistent inclement weather has made quite a mess of various area of track which are being methodically cleaned and checked to bring up to our working standard. Sadly the rain continues and has slowed down our efforts but we will be ready for the expected large number of visitors over the Easter weekend. Our pictures show the extent of the work required and the results being achieved. See you all at Easter!

Mark Ruddy is a regular visiting driver to Sandstone and at the Stars of Sandstone event, in 2019, he was rostered for the first run of the newly restored NG10, number 61. Here is his story and, as you will read, it did not go exactly to plan! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9fWQeZx44g