Friends of the Rail Forum

Posted for the photographer, Dennis Mitchell:

This is the overnight Port Elizabeth - Graaf Reinet passenger at Port Elizabeth, mid October 1974. We travelled on this train arriving at about, from memory, 06:45 and scouted around Graaf Reinet until our goods (mixed) was ready to take off for Lootsberg and Rosmead behind 19D No 3353, which changed trains at Bethesda Road with a 19B No 1409(?) for the trip to Rosmead.

Now this takes me back...

In October '74 I was technically a fireman at Port Elizabeth, though actually on relief in Natal at the time.

First, the station at night, as shown in the photo: when on a station pilot link there was one unusual early evening task. We would be asked to run light engine along each platform road, with an injector on and spraying the slacker pipe at any of the strip lights that were flickering and hadn't quite got started. For some reason the water made them start properly! I don't know whether it was the heat in the water, or possibly by the time the spray reached the tubes maybe it cooled them, but anyway it seemed to work.

Second, the train: at first glance I would have said that this was '8 Up' the Cape Town train, for that was usually double-headed. However, 8 Up left earlier, in daylight, at around 4pm from memory? The Graaff Reinet train (308) set off at about 7.30pm I seem to recall and was usually single-headed, by a 15AR as here. We worked through the night as the caption implies, booking off about breakfast time and sleeping in the Graaf Reinet railway hostel (the original station building?) through the day before making the return run back to PE over the following night. This was Sydenham's only regular 'book-off turn' (or 'double-home turn' in British parlance) at the time.

I returned from Natal in December 1974 and worked 308 and 309 several times in the following couple of months. One week I clocked up over 1000 miles on the Klipplaat line. Two particularly memorable events come to mind. One was on New Year's Eve. We were on the long bank up from Glenconnor when midnight arrived. I spent so long tugging on the whistle to celebrate the new year that my fire suffered and my driver had to come over and help.

The second memory comes from a return trip, drifting down through the bush to the coast in the early dawn. We arrived at Uitenhage to find the next two P. E. suburbans waiting behind their respective 16CRs in adjacent platforms to our left. On this occasion their firemen were Peter Odell and Geoff Hall, later to make their mark at Kimberley and De Aar. There were thus three consecutive passenger trains from Uitenhage to P. E. that morning fired by expat British enthusiast firemen.

Please forward my appreciation of the picture to the photographer.

Martin Coombs

Great photo and nice footplate memories from Martin. There were never really any tales from that part of the country or lines. Please keep them coming. Odell is working one of our trains this weekend!