Friends of the Rail Forum

My wife gave me this book for Christmas. Steam train Romance. Central and Southern Africa 1890 to 1947 by Michael Walker.I already have his Historical Postcards of Southern Africa. This will go camping with me next week and I will enjoy it cover to cover

Looks good!

I am making do with a TRAIN magazine!

Looks good, cant say I have seen that one?
I have a couple of steambooks I will be selling off soon if anyone interested.

Yes Nathan I would be interested, if it's SAR Books. I am also looking for SAR books and DVD's on Electrics and Diesels.The only one I have is Bernard Zurnamers.

Hi , contact me off the list at trainmanorama@gmail.com. Thanks.

I completed my book whilst camping. Two facts I found most fascinating, Before the Line was completed from Cape Town to Kimberely, the journey took over three weeks. This was brought down to 36 hours. That must have been like Supersonic travel for them. Secondly Angola had a thriving Railway system before the civil war started in 1973. They had over 100 Steam Loco's and 40 odd Diesels, all in working condition, with 200 Passenger coaches and over 2500 freight cars.

I have a copy of "The Emigrants guide to South Africa" 1880 and it lists the journey Cape Town to kimberly by rail as 647 miles and 32 Hours then you had to travel from Kimberly to Johannesburg via potchefstroom by coach 298 miles in 53 hours