Friends of the Rail Forum

One of the chaps (footplate staff) from Umgeni Steam Railway posted an interesting video clip(under 1 minute long), of Umgeni Steams' Class 3BR - No 1486, running their Christmas Carols Train - (Sun, 21st Dec 2008), through Gillits station en route to Inchanga. With 5 coaches in tow, one of which is a balcony coach and the last vehicle is suburban side door (slam door) guards van, all in the standard gulf-red and grey livery.

The loco sounds magnificent as the train approaches the cameraman, and "goose-flesh stuff" as the loco's crisp exhaust fades into distance, as the train heads further away to the north-west, on what seems to be a unusual cool and cloudy day in Kwa-Zulu Midlands area!

Click here for the link.

Thanks to the folks at Umgeni Steam.

Gabor

The balcony coach Gabor referred to is coach #500 built 1908 and is reported to have run as an observation car on the Union Limited/Express along with sister coach 501.

Brandon, thanks for that tit-bit. Interesting!