Free State

Hi all.

We were in the vicinity of Vetriver today and decided to do some exploring to find the old bridge across the river.

After paying the new bridge a visit and trying to locate the old one, we tried in vain to gain access from the Theunissen side of the river. So we headed to the new Vetriver station, from here one can still see the old alignment well. On approaching the station 2x orange 6E's headed to Bloem, light locos.

We followed the gravel road, just before we crossed the line we noticed the old cutting heading towards the river. An old map we have shows "abandoned rail route", so we had an idea of where to look. On we went until we noticed a faded sign reading "Waterwerke", here we turned left onto a dirt track down to the river. All along the way we could still make out the old line's route. We crossed over the old line, with some ballast still showing here and there.

We reached the waterworks, here the vegetation started getting very wild and we could no longer make out the old alignment. Some locals pointed us in the direction of "Die ou brug". We followed an almost non - existent road until we had to carry on further on foot. Through some very thick undergrowth, losing some skin on the way, we finally were met by the huge Sand stone abutments of the old bridge over the Vetriver. What an incredible feat it must have been to have constructed this bridge.

The original bridge is long gone and now a lightly constructed catwalk takes only a waterpipe across the river. Down in the river we noticed even older concrete structures, probably from even earlier. All around the area old railway lines and sleepers are all that remain of the once fence. We stood there for a moment in the silence of the veld and imagined what it would have been like over a century ago... The only sound other than our steps over the "bridge" was the sound of birds.

A huge Eucalyptus tree is growing through one of the abutments and is actually starting to crack the old sand stone and mortar.

We headed back to do some more exploring where the old Vetriver station used to stand. The railway reserve is still clearly defined with ancient sleepers and what remains of the fence. We found a dilapidated sand stone building amongst the trees, maybe an old gangers cottage ?

On still further we went and noticed that the reserve suddenly became much wider, soon we were struggling through thousands of Khakibosse to find the old station. There through all the vegetation we noticed a platform, on closer inspection we could make out where the rails once were.

The last remains we found were old sand stone columns from the water column and plenty of clinker and ash in the area, again we imagined way back when a steam loco would stand at this same spot. An old piece of railway line had a date "1891". We also found a date where the sand stone had been repaired with concrete, 4 - 2 - "54.

Back to Theunissen we followed the old alignment for as far as we could, basically right up to the old coal stage and triangle.

Yesterday we caught maroon 34 067 leading her orange sister near Holfontein, on a load of mielies for Kroonstad.

Historical greetings.
John & Jacque.