Friends of the Rail Forum

Though South Africans enjoy riding trains, vandalism and high costs are making this leisure activity difficult to maintain

For all of Reefsteamers’ romance, here is a nonprofit organisation on a shoestring budget. It doesn’t — to coin a phrase — always find itself on the same track as Transnet and Prasa, from whom it rents line, ... More pressingly, the group’s human stock is dwindling.

Every Autumn, on a functioning 6,000ha farm spread across bluffs above the Caledon River in the eastern Free State, a heritage steam event takes place that has become the envy of the world.
"Stars of Sandstone" spans 10 days, attracts 3,000 guests and is alive with the hiss of steam and the whiff of fired coal. There is nothing quite like it anywhere else in the country.
"We reach parts of the [country] that SA Tourism hasn’t even heard of," says Wilfred Mole, the dynamic force behind Sandstone, with a combative growl.