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When a fundamental component of the economy transport is removed .....be prepared for carnage....such as that we have now......these guys who operate these huge machines so efficiently vastly contribute to economic growth of any nation......

We should have never changed from steam to no electricity 😅

Absolutely fabulous video. Thanks for this. All id like to know is where in the country is the film being made

I travel 64 65 and 66 from school in Kimberley to Hotazel.

Colin you might like to know the branch has been tidied up, and although the port end is still cut off from the far end, theres been a Westbury Tarmac train in Realtime trains for 4montha now-many of us waiting to see when they start back down here

Great to see - thanks for posting Colin. My first qualification after school was SAR&H Fireman, shunting in Durban 1974-76. Still remember the steam noise, heat and brasso (lots to clean) and keeping the fire blazing, filling the water tank. It paid for my varsity fees..with the Suez shutdown, Durban port was super-busy, we worked 30 days a month, 14 hours a day.

Glad you saved the film and got it digital, there are some priceless images in here, and the sound quality is very good still. Especially where Coronation Colliery and Enyati Colliery engines are cooperating on the same train. (you mentioned the Natal Ammonium Colliery, this must be the Coronation Colliery). I have seen GEA 4031 during my visit to SA in 1994, but sadly steam operation on both collieries had ceased just weeks before. 5 diesels needed where 2x25NC could do the work! Very capable machines these were.

To think I could have been down the road from Hamworthy in the base there around this time, its weird as a few short years earlier I used to talk with the Bournemouth train crews when I was lampsman up at Waterloo and now I live in Gillingham which back then the ESD trains were my duty to maintain and replenish lamps and stores and the 4SUB's still running in off the suburban lines had to have lamps as well. I thought I would live and die in my native south London and then I went to Hamworthy, then back to London and then in 92 moved back down to Bournemouth and pretty much been a Dorset chap ever since. My dad retired from BR and spent his last years as a signaller for Swanage Rly.

Hi can we please make contact my dad was a steam driver maybe you got some pictures

Fantastic. To think also, just 20 years previous the S&D trains used to pound along here. The sight & sound of a 7f 280 with 10mk1s was incredible. As is every shot on this video. 👌🏼

Brilliant footage crompton heaven 👍👍

The train takes me back to when I was a teenager wonderful. Thanks for the memories

Thank you very much for this video I'm writing about the South African transport from 1964 until 1976. Is it possible to use your pictures. How can I contact you. Very interesting

Man I miss those steam days

OMG preslows ,thanks for posting

Blimey that brings back memories, thanks Colin

Great video.

Fantastic memories 😀 Did plenty of Man Picc/Poole cross country back in the 80s 😂 Push pull 33s heaven 👍🏻

Very poignant watching the freight train go past Hamworthy Middle School around the 2 45 mark - I might even have been absent-mindedly staring out of my classroom window at it at that very moment!

Great old footage. Like how the crossing keeper only opened half the gates.

Excellent. Great old days

Sweet memories.

I've only just discovered this video and I cannot thank you enough. My Dad used to work on the steam locomotives in Germiston. It was in his blood until the day he died. This brought back memories and tears to my eyes.

Wow, watching those S1s in Germiston yard brings back so many memories. I was a fireman there for years but finally moved to Kimberley where I worked the big 25NCs on the mainline. Thanks for posting this clip, I love it to bits

Commenting time links for my friend 2:58 9:46

Remember this

If only I had a time machine to go back to these glorious times with all the Freight trains and slam door REPS and 4TCs and no Cross Country Voyagers. Last time I caught a loco hauled train from Poole was September 1997 the Sunday Princess Diana was killed. I was on the Sunday morning Poole to Glasgow Central.

Thank you so much for preserving and posting these very historic films. In 1982, I took a photo of a 19D at Harrismith, recently arrived from Warden. She was in spotless condition. The driver let my daughter go up on the footplate, and pull the whistle chain for the departure! The same year, I was on the Trans Karoo Express, got off at the Orange River service stop, walked along the cinders, and was warmly welcomed up on to the footplate of our 25NC. The regular crew had got off, and an ex SAR driver and fireman, who happened to be on the train, had also gone "up front", and were doing the watering and fire-raking for old-times sake. This was after dark, with the orange glow in the cab, the red-hot fire iron, the "snick-snick" of the steam operated rocking grate, and on top of the tender, in the shadows, someone tending the water crane. An experience which is forever imprinted in my memory.

Great bit of filming - great memories for me. I live in Derbyshire but my aunt lived at Parkstone. The times I've spent on Parkstone Station , at Poole Park, Poole Station and LCs in the 70s and 80s . Many happy family holidays which were spent between 'holiday' things and watching the 33's, 73's and 47's and the Channel Islands Boat Train going up the bank at 07.50 every morning! Wish I could bring it all back, mum, dad, aunts and uncles all now gone as well.....Thanks for memories of happy times!

Wonderful video of the South African steam locomotives working hard. Thank you for making the effort and expense to have them digitised for TH-cam. Greatly appreciated by many like the us. Hope there is more coming. Well done.

15:45 That was a slog! Those tankers were over 100 tons each fully laden weren't they.

33/0 hauling TCs? Very, very rare.

Great video, many thanks!

Lovely bit of film thanks for the memories

Great video. Used to work for Brittany Ferries. Great to see the old Truckline Coutances ferry at the beginning. Remember the freight trains coming in. Good old days.

all my memories in that film didnt want it to end thanks for sharing.

Oh wow. Brought back some fond memories. Everything I know and love. Used to sit in my aunties back garden on Stert road and watch them shunt the yard. Thank you Colin. From Colin of Parkstone Goods fame.

And the Steam in Spain & Portugal?

Thank you for these scenes. So much of it, even the diesels at the end, bring back memories. The quality of the pictures and the sound are very impressive. Thank you for saving this wonderful archive.

Excellent and wonderful to see a few scenes that I don't think one would find on other clips. The Grahamstown to Alicedale section specifically.

Greetings from Bergvliet, Cape Town. Fantastic stuff!

Excellent!!!!

Poole power stations chimneys dominating the skyline

Great memories Colin- it was always exciting to see a named 47 on the inter- regional- do you remember which one is seen departing Poole over the level crossing? Do you also remember seeing (if you were really lucky) a 74 struggling on diesel up Parkstone bank on the ‘02’ parcels- happy times in deed!

Wonder what was in the "shocbarfits" near the beginning of the clip?

Hampton Court MRS are building a model of Hamworthy (Jct) - albeit a little bit later than this film, if anyone has any photos that show the area around the station, particularly the cement terminal just around the corner down the branch, I'd love to see them. The location may be familiar to preservationists as there was a re-repatriated WD 8F (ex Turkish railways IIRC) briefly stored at the cement terminal for stripping and shot blasting.

Great video, Colin. Have you got any more footage?