Free State News

Hi all.

On Friday we headed to Bloemhof, just quickly. On arrival at the station we noticed the South bound signal was green. A short while later Plasserail's yellow and blue "Infrastructure Measuring Vehicle" headed through with a friendly hoot from the crew.

The rest of the weekend was the normal RRL ore haulage in the Welkom area.

Today we headed to Wesselsbron, here we found some mielie trucks in the station yard, and one Anhydrous-Ammonia tanker. From here we headed towards Bultfontein. Near Besempan we found an unfamiliar face in a TFR bakkie ?

We paid a visit to the silos / stations in the area, and found FZ's at them all but no movement.

At Bultfontein we found blue 34 093 and blue 34 037 arriving with a long load of mielie trucks. They proceeded to shunt at the silos, we greeted the driver, left them there and headed to Brandfort. The grass has been cut at Bultfontein and even the platform looks neat for a change. The disused carport still stands and we found the rails supporting the structure to be of 1886 / 1897 & 1889 vintage.

At Brandfort we found the all signals red. The Ballast tamping Machine was standing at the old goods shed, together with a SAR 3rd class crew coach. The only movement was a Spoorbaan truck heading out of the yard. There is still a small station garden on the platform here.

Then on to Theunissen, here to we found all the signals red again. While we were departing a glance back revealed an approaching train. We decided to head for Theron and catch her there. At Theron orange E 1547, hauling dead maroon 34 067 headed through on a long load of containers and petrol tankers. 34 067 was coming back from Bloemfontein after repairs that Kroonstad couldn't handle. We left Theron for Virginia. Back on the road we noticed the empty car train heading South. So back to Theunissen we headed.

At Theunissen orange E 1395 and orange E 1461 headed through at quite a speed, again a friendly hoot from the driver.

Then we headed to Virginia, all aspects red, only the Spoorbaan attending to points at the Glen Harmony branch.

On to Hennenman, no trains.

Back in Welkom we caught blue hire 35 on the RRL ore heading to the gold plant.

Greetings.
John & Jacque.