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| Near Maclear |
As a fireman on the steam locomotives of the railways, it is sometimes required of you to do relief duties at other loco's, to allow the local fireman to go on leave. I was once sent to Maclear, a beautifull little town in the foothills of the Drakensberg mountains, not a very hard route to fire, and beautiful scenery all the way past Ugie, Gatberg, Moffies kloof and all those places to Elliot where you turned around again.
My driver was a good man, relatively young, transferred from East London where there was an unfortunate incident resulting in some carraiges being pushed up onto the platform. great man to work with.
I arrived at Maclear in the morning, and the engine was already hooked up to the train waiting to go, I checked the fire and put on a little bit more because, as all firemen that ever worked Maclear knows, there is a sharp climb out of the station and around the hill before the line sorts itself out on the way to Ugie.
We arrived back during the twilight preceding the crystal clear nights that prevail in small towns far from polluted skies, and stabled the engine, The driver asked me if I wanted to stay over with them, but I declined the kind offer and made my way up to the old railway houses above the loco, of which one had been set aside as restrooms for relieving personel, the other three being unoccupied (here I must beg some leeway, I cannot remember if there were three or four houses, I do remember that the house I was to stay in , had a house on either side of it)
I went into the kitchen and found that the old coal burning stove was not lit, in fact there was no kindling or coal to make a fire with, I was upset as this meant that there was no water to bath in, I took my scoff tin and went to the room, the one next to the lounge had been prepared for me, I sat down on the bed and started pulling off my socks, trying to phsych myself up for the cold water bath I was going to have to take, when I heard a bustle in the kitchen, I got up determined to give whom ever a piece of my mind about the unlit stove. THERE WAS NO ONE THERE.
Not really worried I went back into the room wondering where the sounds came from. I opened my RAT pack which I was issued with at the loco in Queenstown, and started eating, after which I went and had a cold water wash. Something else about Maclear is the fact that It gets hellish cold at night and the railway blankets on the bed was quite threadbare, But I put a pair of clean socks on my hands, dived under the blankets and pulled them up over me, leaving only my nose and eyes peering out, and so I must have dozed off.
I woke to the sound of the front door opening, and the clump of footsteps over the floor of the lounge, moving in the direction of the door leading to the passage, I launched myself out of bed just as I heard the passage door open and did a Rambo dash to my door, yanked it open, spoiling for a fight. THERE WAS NO ONE, THE PASSAGE DOOR WAS CLOSED, I opened the door to the lounge, THERE WAS NO ONE.
It must have been round about this time that I lost it, grabbing my tin and clothes, muttering swearwords in a voice two octaves up from my normal one, I dashed half naked down to the loco.
I slept on the footplate for the rest of the week, washing in the bucket and cooking in the firebox, rolled in a blanket close up against the frontplate, very cosy and snug, that was where the call man found me every morning, none the wiser, probably thought I was very astute.
And the ghost. FUCK him, if he wanted the house that badly, he could have it
Sometimes catching the tablet is a scary business, I always took care to ensure that the tablet will hit the tender or cabside instead of the back of my head. Normal practice is that as you hit the edge of the platform you sling the old tablet down with a backwards movement, swinging your arm up in time to catch the new tablet. Once at speed I slung the old tablet down and caught the new one, looking back I saw the Station forman doing a kind of Irish jig on the podium, I had hit him on the leg with the tablet, I swear there was no intent of malice, but I earned a written warning for that.
Once coming up to dreunberg with the down passanger train sometime after twelve at night I did not see the foreman come out with the tablet even though we had the mainline sticks, I told the driver, whom of course could also see this, he waited until he was sure that no one was going to appear and started to slow the train down, being a passanger train one could not just do an emergency stop, we stopped way past the exit points and I ran back to the station to find out what was wrong. The foreman was standing waiting for me with the tablet, I asked him what went wrong and he said he could not come out because there was an old woman and a girl ghost on the platform. this is great news to hear if you have to go back that way, I grabbed the tablet and left the office at speed, putting on an extra burst and a high pitched swearword as I passed the bench.
Once on the branch we had an order to cross at a particular point, but we met the train at a siding much earlier than expected, these old drivers where so used to working the branch that they knew instinctively where the other train was, and sometimes they made up their own rules.
Came into Indwe late at night with Andries Venter on cross trips and all I could see was a solitary red light in the middle of the track, we stood and whistled but no one came, the driver sent me to go and check, the foreman had put his red lamp down knowing that we would not pass it without checking, I let the train in, we hooked off and ran around to the coal stage and did our thing, then snatched some sleep.
Booked off at Burgersdorp in the late afternoon, sat talking to the fireman who worked up the other engine, close to the fence of the loco and the houses, when a woman came out and told us to F$$$ OFF as she knew that we where after her daughters and she was going to call the uncle, so we effed off much cowed and we did not even know that she had daughters.
Worked the Tarka with Skelm Schalk and Jan Nel, Schalk had a steam pot which he hooked onto the carraige steam guage, made us some bean stew, it was ready as we pulled into Tarakastad, best stew I ever tasted.
Put some bully beef in the blow down cock to heat it up, the cock was stuck so I could not ease it open, gave it a bit of a yank and blew my tin of bully up against a tree, never knew a bully tin could get that flat.
When I started as a fireman I was told that a man had hung himself at the entrance points of Lushoff, I crossed there one night working with Andries Voogt, a Guardless train, so I had to get out, turn the points ,let the train in, then close the points and lock them, then walk all the way back to the diesel,frightening at night. I told myself to keep calm, dont look back, keep going at a measured pace, I passed the little shed for milk cans and someone waiting in the dark for the milktrain greeted me, I lost it, I took off at speed for the engine and fell into the cab,the driver wanted to know why I looked so pale, I said nothing, but he knew.
Waiting at the same spot some time later he fell asleep, I took the red lamp, put it in front of him, hit the side of the cab and shouted "its red", he hit every brake in the cab including the reverser, shame, I still feel shit about that one.
Worked a double header in the snow with my brother, stopped at the sticks by baily, he jumped off the footplate to talk to me and promptly dissapeared, the engine had stopped next to a culvert covered by snow and he had jumped into it.
Holding down a job as a fireman or stoker on the South African railways was mostly not an easy job, it was hard sweaty hours, sometimes on an empty belly, sometimes putting in a twenty four hour shift after a night of hard partying or turning out early from another trip. But despite this, it was enjoyable, I dont know what the attraction was but maybe it was the mastering of the big steam beast and the pride of a job well done.
Some of the drivers we worked with were miserable old shits who devoted the entire trip to making your life a misery, through decency and the fact that they left relatives behind, I will not name them here, but I wish I could, so that they may live on in infamy as those who tarnished a great experience through lord alone knows what motivation.
There were the others that made the job a pleasure, I will name them and I hope their grandchildren stumbles across these pages, so that they may learn more about their forebears, and know that they where great guys, at home and at work.
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| Queenstown Steam Loco (photo taken by Eddie Hayes) |
During the odd times that we stopped over at Syfergat, waiting to cross a train, I use to gaze up at the slight rise in the distance, to the scar made by coal mining operations decades ago, like those at Indwe, the vegetation had largely reclaimed the scars left by man.
Syfergat used to be a sizable town complete with hotel and store, the structures of which still stood proudly in the early seventies, Syfergat was a manned station until centralized trafffic controll made the presence of personel unecessary, and the station died an ignoble death and reverted back to the windswept plain above Bushmans hoek, like it was before the Anglo Boer war when mining coal there was absolutely essential to the runing of the eastern cape railway,
none of the history of that place lived on in the recollections of any of the older drivers and not surprising so, the coal mined there was young or raw and burned tar and clinker and as soon as the war stopped a better grade of coal was brought down from the Transvaal and Natal.
Generally the quality of coal was fine during my time, but there was a time when I got a tender full of foul burning coal that turned into clinker effectively smothering the fire and making life hard on the footplate.
Syfergat sits on top of the mountain up Boesmans hoek pass, past Carrickmore, an old ruin of a house next to the railway line that used to intrigue me with its mysterious past and reported ghostly specters that awaited the passanger train on a misty rain strewn night,
on a night like that I had to go to the back of the train to protect against possible trains coming up from behind, we had broken a buffer and was working on a permission tablet,
I experienced a most uncomfortable sensation as I walked past the steps of the old ruin, I could not run as the pathway was slippery and I might have injured myself, alas,
I never met the spectral shapes but I heard the Baboons protest in the dark as they picked up my scent wafting through the damp mist.
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| Tarkastad mixed heading out of Queenstown |
Boesmans hoek more or less starts at Lower Incline, a beautifully kept crossing point just out of Sterkstroom, Lower Incline does not exist today, even the little platform and dias where the station foreman used to stand holding out the tablet for me to catch is gone today, but it was here that we used to put on those big fires, often I tried to put on one fire to take me over the mountain into Molteno, I always only made it to Syfergat where I had to dust the fire a bit for the run in to Molteno, I believe my brother ran one fire from Lower Incline to the water column in Molteno, he was a better fireman than me.
Molteno is the terminal for the branch line to Jamestown, a line now long since closed down, I worked this on a blustery winters morning in the 24class stationed there, the water column was frozen solid and I had to spray it with hot water from the spray pipe before a I could fill the tender, the driver stationed there during my time was a neat person, came to work like it was an office, we never really hit it off and I dreaded the times I had to do relieving duties there
The second main station from Queenstown was Baily, also consigned to an ignoble weed grown ruin since centralised traffic controll took over, but there was a road worker stationed there, he had his own house with quite a bit of a menagerie going there, he had a gaggle of geese, or a lot of them any how, his house was on the curve that swept out of Baily and the geese used to stray onto the tracks, quite naturally resulting on their demise, sometimes a feather or two drifted up into the cab from a crack in the floor, and sometimes one could catch a wiff of roasted duck as those that got stuck, slowly cooked under the ashpan until they eventually dropped of.
Braamneck was another gradient I loved to climb with one fire, we did this run in 19 D's and sometimes the condition of these engine did not allow a one fire approach as the fire was generally buggered by then, and fiddling around in was frowned upon as it could result in veld fires, but I often did it, running all the way into Imvani with just a sprinkle of coal as we approached the home signal.
At Sterkstroom the line branches off to Maclear, It was devided into sections, Sterkstroom to Dordreght, Dordreght to Indwe, Indwe to Elliot and Elliot to Maclear, I worked this entire stretch on cross trips in a 19A once, I particularly disliked the section from Dordreght to Indwe and the one I enjoyed most was the one from Elliot to Maclear, my father was born in this area, near Ugie and was in the orphanage in Ugie until he left school, we never lived there, but maybe it was the ancestral spirits that spoke to me every time I was in the area.
The Qamata line joined the main line from Imvani, there is a short sharp climb from Lessyton to Birch and I was once given a warning because we lost one minute running time on the section, the driver reported me saying that the fireman could not keep steam, how many times does the driving wheel rotate in one minute, he was a mean old shit, once on the shunts he accused me of stealing his sugar and tea because I poured some tea into my mug from the billy that I had just made using his tea and sugar, this was a complaint he never used when I used my tea and shared it with him, what kind of homelife does a man like that have, he was a thin faced mean old bastard and I think his wife used to beat him regularly before using him as a douche'.
Colourfull characters that over time found a warm spot of fondness in the hart worked as drivers there, Kaspaas, nothing, but nothing, could upset the man, always spoke with a smile in his voice , Ronnie , used to work the deadmans brake while fast asleep, used to confuse him by pressing the button on my side cancelling out his button presses, he never said a thing but he must have known,
Mr Clark, rough exterior, all firemen scared of him, but he was soft inside, used to work out arithmetic problems by writing in the air, remarkable was the fact that he used to erase some of it without losing a mental picture of where he wrote the rest.
Chris, most mis understood of all, no doubt he would flatten you in a moment of rage, but he was a fair man to work with, never said much and all the times I shared those lonely silent trips with him I could feel that deep inside he was a lonely man, he seemed to find comfort in solitude lost in his own thoughts and maybe he escaped by other means as well, I truly regretted learning of his passing, hope he found the type of love he needed in the end.
I often used to beg the oil storeman for extra sticks of axle grease or a bundle of waste, always managed to weedle it out of him under much protestation, I never caught him in a good mood, he used to cycle to work, and I guess he did not like to come out on a sunday to supply the two engines on their way to Burgersdorp. years later, when I had hit pensionable age and found the stipend paid by the government to be too small, I took an casual job and met Basil again, he was also working there for the same reasons, recognition was easy and we spent some time recalling the past, he is actually quite a pleasant fellow to know.
There is an old adage that goes like this "old men live in the past and young men live in the future " how true, as I sit and type here I am profoundly aware of the fact that all around me are too young to care a flying fig about what happened in my past, and those that shared my past are nowhere around, I think that is the true meaning of being alone, even in the company of others.
A train cannot be stopped just because you feel like having a crap, there are no toilets on the engine and this is possibly a grave oversight on the part of the designers, but, if you have to go you got to go, on the steam engine it was easy, if you had a wee you simply hung your what sis out of the cab and did your thing, cleaning the area afterwards with the spray pipe, having a crap was a little more technical and involved getting into the tender with the spade, doing your thing, then washing the spade down with the spray pipe and holding it in the fire until it nearly glows, this is necessary as you are going to need it to cook the sausage later on . The whole ball game changes on a diesel, to wee you move back and stand between the diesels doing your thing, the wind keeping the spray off of you, having a crap is almost impossible, you put your one foot on the one diesel and the other on the other diesel, then gripping the rails you hang in between the two diesels while trying to avoid shitting on the buffers, because this makes the shunters job dirty and may earn you a warning. On a cold winters morning I hung there like a baboon on a cliff, but the cold sub zero air that came gushing up between the diesels made me pinch making the task impossible, I tried twice and had to give up, the urge was so great that I confided in the driver, he seemed to have an understanding of the situation, maybe an earlier experience along the same lines. At the next station, although we had right of way, he stopped and I shot into the bushes, watching for the station foreman who will surely come to investigate, I made it back onto the diesel as the foreman came up enquiring about the problem, the driver replied that he stopped to check the pipes and connections because something on the diesel felt a bit shitty, He was not far wrong, and the foreman did not enter an official complaint.
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| On the branch line |
You have to sign on in the shed office, mostly, the shedmen ignore you, always wondered why they have to do this when with a small effort they could be nice people. Check the list to see what engine and where it is, take the oil voucher, collect the drivers keys and fetch the kit from the lockers, fetch the prickers from the rack and load them, go get the oil, move the engine under the water column and check the fire, put the lubricator oil under the blowdown cock and drain the lubricator,
Fill the oil cans and walk around the engine oiling the oil feeders, grab the hard grease sticks and grease the connecting rods, fill the marfak gun and marfak all the points, get the lubricator oil and fill the lubricator,
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| The Van Schoor tablet device |
Connect the spray pipe and spray the whole cab and roof down, soak a piece of waste in oil and clean the front plate and cab roof, fill the water bottle and boil the billie while you check the spark arrestors in the smokebox, use the lamp to check if it is sealing properly, check to see if the two sand boxes are full, fill the bucket with the spray pipe and clean the spade handle and hammer and yourself, make tea,
Take the drivers scoff tin that he hands up to you, greet him and offer him a mug of tea, check the position of the exit points of the loco, walk to the van Schoor while the driver puffs up behind you, ring for a tablet, take it out and get on the engine, show the driver the tablet, he acknowledges and you start drifting down towards the station, check the setting of the lubricator once again, set the injector to fine.
Hooked onto the Qamata mixed, standing on the main line at the platform, waiting for the tablet and the flag, steam on the mark, water just disappearing at the top of the glass the fire banked, green swirls of smoke drifting over the brick arch.
Rightaway comes and you crack open the blower and kick the firebox door open as the driver opens the regulator, the fire ignites with a woosh that hits back nearly all the way to the tender and the Dolly starts barking her way out of the station, ducks under the south shunt bridge, and starts to roar down the slope past the loco.set the injector and As you hit the bridge by the loco the safety valve pops and the engine sounds like a twin cylinder honda motor cycle running at speed, yank open the firebox and start doing the firemans shuffle knowing that all the other firemen in the loco will be watching.
You see. If you dont blow off as you pass the loco, you will be over the wall before you get to Birch, everybody knows that, and they rag you when you come back.
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| Hauling the passenger train up the gradient |
We worked a double header to Burgersdorp, two 19 dollies, can't remember the train number, I think it was 5521 and coming back 5526, a shunting train, or pickup train as the guards used to say. But the years have flown and the memory has flagged.
I was just out of training and still a bit unsure of myself and the driver did nothing to inspire confidence, sitting on his seat lost in his own reverie, grunting an acknowledgement to my announcements of the states of the signals along the line. But I held my own, making him tea at Sterkstroom after cleaning the fire and taking water, hosing down the footplate to keep it dust free, keeping the steam just on the mark, just enough to fly a white feather above the safety valve, generally doing the things a fireman is supposed to do. We coasted down to the ashpits in Burgersdorp loco while the sun was still up, all in all a pleasant trip.
Burgersdorp was a book off trip, in other words you slept over and made the return trip the next day. As we signed off at the shed we were told that there was only one loco to go down to Queenstown for washout, the other team was going home "spare" in 434, the Joburg, East London passenger train. I am not sure how the selection of "who goes and who stays" is made, but we had the front coming up, and my driver was the senior man, so maybe the decision of who gets the extra hours was based on seniority. The fireman gets called an hour before the driver, to give him time to prepare the engine for the trip, in respect of oiling, greasing, watering and preparing the fire.
That morning, I slung the kit box onto the foot plate, loaded the rest of the kit, including the bucket, spraypipe, fire prickers and oilcans of the team that went home spare. I hit the ejector open and lifted the brake handle, pulled the reverser back, and opened the regulator a little way, so that I could move the locomotive under the water column in order to top up the water tender.
There was a harsh hiss from the firebox and I went cold to the marrow of my bones. I could not believe my luck, a blowing superheater tube, means I am going to have to work just a little bit harder today.I went to the oilstore and weedled an extra bit of lubricator oil out of the storeman, while the water was filling and the lubricator was draining, I was determined not to allow the engine to grunt during this trip, as I was going to have my work cut out trying to keep stream. I opened the smokebox door and nearly fell off the front of the engine, she was blowing out of three tubes, I could see the steam coming out of them, and I knew I was in trouble, I took some extra grease sticks and worked them around the smokebox door, I was going to need every bit of help, and I could not affford to have her suck in cold air through an ill fitting smokebox door.
I said "sy blaas maat" meaning the tubes are blowing, to the driver as I handed him a mug of tea as he got onto the footplate, but he said nothing, and I smelled that he had more than coffee the previous night, I hopped of , swung the points and rang for a tablet at the vanSchoor device, and we choof, choofed tender first out of the loco, just as it was beginning to get light enough to make out the distant randjies around the town.
The yard master came and spoke to the driver, I heard him say that the loco told him the engine's tubes was blowing, and he could leave the load and run light if he wanted to, I felt deeply gratefull to providence that was coming out to help me at this stage of the trip, but my hopes were cruelly dashed as I heard the driver say, "haak aan ek wil ry", I opened the blower full and started making fire with a will as we hooked on and got the right away. The driver pushed the reverser forward all the way and yanked the regulater full open against its stops, and the engine started moving forward with a deep throughted chooof, chooof, I kicked the injector into fine feed and opened the firebox door to feed a few spades of coal into the fire. I looked and could not believe my eyes, the combined effect of the regulator and blower was sucking holes into my fire, combined with the fact that the release of steam into the tubes, just above the brick arch, was altering the characteristics of the fire, and the gas going through to the smokebox was not as hot as it should be, was conspiring to work against me,
I tucked in and started shovelling coal with a will, three in each corner, two in each side, one to the front of each side and three down the middle, it keeps the fire in the shape of a wedge, putting more heat at the back, where the hot gasses swirl over the brick arch and into the tubes. Try as I may, I could not get the steam any where near the mark, and the driver was still working the reverser far forward, making the engine hungry for steam, I doubled the oil feed through the lubricator, cast a nervous eye on the sight glass and looked out of my window for the signal at Lalisa, and started getting ready to catch the tablet.
From Lower Adamson it is more or less uphill to Stormberg with a bit of a level through Lushof.Stormberg is the junction for the branch line to Rossmead. It was here at Stormberg where I got a slight respite, just enough to trim down the coal, which was becoming less and less at an alarming rate, and to shake the fire and dig around in it for a while with the small pricker, of course, by this time the fire had taken on menacing proportions, and was not at all like the wedge of the text book, more like a loaf of bread, and this in itself was wrong. Because of the fact that I had to have the blower on all the time, and I had to feed coal in all the time, she was burning klinker, and this was preventing a good draw through the fire.
Leaving Stormberg its an easy ride through Onverwag,where we had the main line, crossing with a diesel hauling a load without a guard( or wearing ears, as we used to refer to the warning boards on each side of the guards van)after which you had a easy ride before coasting down to Molteno.I used this stretch to try and fire the engine "light and bright" it meant constant shovel work, But it had to be, I did not want to mess the fire up uneccessary as I was going to have to clean it in Molteno. As we drifted down towards Molteno, I opened the drain cock of the lubricator, dropped the grates and started shaking the fire with vigour(the shakers worked with the drop grate handle) trying to break the clinker and shove it through the drop grates. Alas, the whole fire was moving up and down, I kicked the injector full open, opened the ashpan sprinklers and set to the fire with a will.
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| Cleaning the fire |
It is usual for the driver to help the fireman by cleaning the ashpan while he takes water and cleans the fire, that day I had to do both, there was a massive clinker at the back that I could not break or turn to one side, I raked the fire to the best of my ability, boiled the billy can and made tea for the driver, filled and set the lubricator, then I started putting on a fire again.
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| taking water |
Some of our load was destined for Molteno and we left some trucks there before we set off to Syfergat, a sharp pull out of the town before the level, through Syfergat and on to Bushmans hoek. Coasting past Carrickmore down bushmans hoek I kicked the injector open full, turned on the ash sprinklers and started shaking the grates, I did a highly irregular thing by opening the drop grates, while I furiously battled with the giant clinker. Just before the bridge I opened the ashpan, this is also highly irregular, but I had no option, and there was nothing that could burn there, the sleepers where made of concrete, and the driver said nothing.
We got the right of way at Lower incline, where we crossed the up train 5521 standing on the loop, Jan Nel hung out of the window and gave me the crooked finger sign, the universal sign meaning you are hardup, or "oor die knop", and I started laying on some fire, not too much, hoping a short stop at Sterkstroom will give me another crack at the fire.
I climbed into the tender and started trimming coal down as I could not reach it anymore from the footplate. We ran through Sterkstroom without stopping and momentarily I felt bitter towards providence, handing me such a raw deal, but I bent down and laid on a fire for the climb up to Putters Kraal, from Putters kraal there is a bit of a climb past skietfontein until we crest the rise before chugging past Baily.
As the driver closed the regulator a bit after the climb. the safety valve went off, I could not believe my eyes and shot a look at the guage, yes, there she was, right on the mark, as I looked at the water sight glass I could have sworn I saw a smile on the drivers face.
There is not much work for the engine after Baily and providing we got the all clear through Baily, Bowkers Park and Berry park we are home and dry, I trimmed some more coal, put on some fire and started cleaning the kit. We dropped the load in the South of the shunt yard and the shunters expedited us out to the loco, there was no coal left in the tender and as we stopped infront of the shed office the injector kicked off through lack of water.
I handed the driver his tin as he got off of the footplate and turned around to collect the kit, he called me back."maat" I turned around and he said "jy kan darem fokken stook ne" I worked with him from time to time, always the silent trips. But I always made sure his cup of tea was waiting for him, and he always treated me square, even when he had been celebrating.
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| Big dome 19D working hard |
It was usual for the fireman who worked relief shunt to work the loose engine to Strekstroom in the evening, Sterkstroom served the branch line to Maclear, and from time to time the engines stationed along the line, at Indwe and Maclear, had to be brought back to Queenstown to have their boilers washed out.
Collecting those engines from Sterkstroom was the purpose of these trips. I was booked on one of these with a driver with whom I once worked an engine with blowing tubes.
As he got on the footplate I could see that he was true to form because as I handed him some tea, he said "al die stokers se gatte"(all the firemens arses) and I became silent and thoughtfull for a moment.
Sterkstroom is not far from Queenstown, less than an hour in a motor car, but the road is in a good condition. We went through Queenstown at a sedate pace and on to berry park where I caught the tablet for bowkers park, then the driver opened up, the afrikaans term is(hy vat haar bymekaar).
Once on the Berry park shunt we took a 15AR to Bowkers Park with some ballast trucks, and came back loose, the driver pushed the engine and I watched as the speedo climbed up to fifty, at that speed the engine started to sway from side to side and the driver closed down the regulator sharply and worked the brakes to get the speed down.
A dolly at speed hops up and down, and is effing frightening, I was stunned and hung on for dear life, the driver looked at me and said "steek haar maat" meaning, feed the fire I did so with alacrity stumbling around on the foot plate, this was old Juby's engine, well looked after and lovingly polished by him and his fireman in Maclear, and by God she could pick up her skirts and fly. It was round about here that I started praying and having reflective thoughts on religion in general, I caught the tablet at bowkers park standing behind the driver, and the holder ran all the way up my arm and clanged into the tender, I hung it on the blower cock and tended the fire,
At Baily we got an order advising that the next station was unattended and we where clear to Putters Kraal. There is a section of the track that runs parralell to the tar road, and I was amazed to notice that we where keeping pace with some of the traffic.
I started cleaning the kit because the Stekstroom engine would be prepped and waiting for us, but I gave up, I was being jostled from side to side and might fall off. The old shedman at sterkstroom asked me if I was feeling sick, I looked at him with wild staring eyes for a moment contemplating booking off sick, but I loaded the kit and we set off (it would be more accurate to say that we effed off).
Bowkers Park was on my side and I leaned out of the window to catch the tablet, as I did the foreman shouted something that I thought I heard but I ignored it in my quest to tend the fire.
We handed the engine over to the shedman at Queenstown and I packed the kit away, I signed off and the shedman looked as if he was going to say something to me but changed his mind, as I walked through the door I remembered what the station master at Bowkers Park shouted, he said "Julle is fokken mal" (roughly translated it means "you guys are fucking mad")
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| 19D with vanderbilt tender |
I did my training on 15AR steam locomotives, once or twice on a 24class to Tarkastad, but only after working on my own I was introduced to a 19D.
I was sent to Sterkstroom, one week out of training, to work the Maclear passenger train, this was 19D country, the one I got had manual grate shakers, you used the drop grate handle to move the grates up and down in order to shake the fire.
Mr Dicks did not play with an engine, and we stood blowing up at Kleinskuur, no steam, no water. I have an eternal gratitude to the man that he realised I was still wet behind the ears and he took a more lenient approach from there on.
However, it gave me an undying love for this particular engine, it was not merely a case of banging coal into her, you fired her firmly but with finesse,packing the corners, watching the fire, feeding where it was needed, tickling and cajoling until she responded to every shovel load,like a lover sensetive to every touch.
The 19D is a South African designed loco with 4-8-2 configuration and was built in Austria, Germany and the United Kingdom.
Between 1936 and 1938 Krupp built 20 (2506-2525) Borsig built another 20 (2526-2545) I worked some of them in the early seventies, just before the war another 95 were built by them (Skoda 15 number 2626-2640)(Borsig 40 numbers 2681-2720) and Krupp 40 (2641-2680).
After the war Robert Stephenson of England made and delivered 50 (2721-2770) and the last batch 50 also came from there (3321-3370), I worked some of these in the early seventies, old Juby who was stationed at Maclear had a regular engine from this batch.
The 19D had Walschearts valve gear as opposed to the poppet valve system of the 19C class. The Dollies built by Krupp were domeless while Borsig delivered domed 19D's. Those built after the war all had vacuum brake systems and came with Vanderbilt tenders, over the years various changes was made to the tenders of these locomotives, primerally to suit the region, but the Vanderbilt was preferred for its carrying capacity. I only ever once worked a Dolly with a Vanderbilt tender.
This plucky little engine saw service all over South Africa, but strangely, not in the Western Cape, that was 19C country. there were 235 of these engines in South Africa.
Doing what she was designed for, working the branch line
They ended thier lives as shunting engines after spending glorious days heading passenger trains over branch lines and sometimes international ones as well, they were amongst the very last to be replaced by diesel traction.
I wandered through the loco graveyard at Queenstown and recognized some of them, now rusty old hulks, but in their day, proud steam belching whenches, I remember the pride of chugging past a passenger laden platform in a shining Dolly hanging out of the window, what a picture that must have been.
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