Next to a gravel road somewhere between Belmont and Douglas stands a man, soot-blackened hands cupped behind his ears, blue eyes fixed on great billows of smoke and steam in the winter air. Peter Odell – known to his British friends as Bedford – blinks away tears. Next to him, equally moved, stands Richard Peck aka York.
Peter was there when the last regular steam-hauled train departed from the London terminus station Waterloo on 9 July 1967, and when the fire was extinguished on the last regular South African Railways steam locomotive on 31 December 1992. For many years, he was the driver of a steam locomotive that he’d dubbed the Karoo Conqueror. Hearing the chug, clatter and whistle echoing from a Karoo koppie and seeing one of these iron giants running on this railway line again is something he’s been working towards for decades.
“It runs like a dream,” Peter says. Thirty years of work has paid off.
For his part, Bernd Seiler is practically jumping for joy. He is the leader of the photography tour group of nearly 80 people from all over the world. Putting this trip together – to photograph and film magnificent old steam locomotives in the Northern Cape and Free State landscapes – has taken the German businessman more than three years, and a lot of patience and euros.
In the cab – or rather on the footplate – of the restored #3437, a powerful Class 25NC steam locomotive, the driver smiles. He releases the brakes and opens thepressurised steam is generated to propel the locomotive.
