Friends of the Rail Forum

Chris Janisch, Chair of HRASA wrote:Sandstone are at present scrapping the 3 19Ds at Vailima siding. In response to a request for a statement regarding this action, Mike Myers provided the following:

Mike Myers wrote:You may be aware that Sandstone had to move the 19D’s from Ficksburg at huge cost due to ongoing vandalism and the cost to secure the site was also simply becoming too much of a financial burden. The irony is that even though they were moved to a storage line at Sandstone it was still necessary to guard the locomotives as attempts were still being made to steal scrap off them.

A study was conducted to see whether it was feasible to try and restore one of the locomotives, using the other two as spares, but with all the boilers needing a total rebuild it did not make economic sense. Sandstone which is not a 3’6” operator already has a 19D, which was rebuilt as new, standing in Bloemfontein but there does not appear to be any interest from anyone to lease the locomotive so it would have made no sense to spend the money building another when other important ongoing projects require funding. The proceeds from the 19D’s will also go towards these projects.

Our steam team has removed all the useable parts from the 19D’s which are now in safe keeping. We are also in the process of providing SAPPI with some of spares that were saved, which they are in sore need of, to extend the life of their units.

The sheds which were also moved at great expense from Ficksburg have been rebuilt in the farm complex and will be used to provide much needed storage for other rail heritage items.

We do not have any plans to scrap any other locomotives in the foreseeable future and will continue to save and preserve what we can