Harry's Tales: Live Steam
When Harry Wroth was ten years old he sometimes joined his father on the footplate of a steam locomotive while shunting operations were being carried out.
Here's some some information to set the scene.
The standard railway gauge in South Africa is 3ft 6ins. That's the distance between the railway lines. Thisis the same in Japan, but the Japanese cannot use our rolling stock because we have the largest loading gauge in the world. South African rolling stock would not pass through Japanese station platforms, tunnels or bridges.
All the engines at De Doorns in 1941, when I was 10 years old, were of the Mountain type wheel arrangement namely 4-8-2 -a swivel bogie of 4 small wheels, 8 bigger coupled driving wheels and a trailing swivelled pony truck with 2 small wheels. There was a pool of about 20 engines. Extra engines added to trains to help pull them to the top of the Hex River Mountain Pass at Matroosberg. These Class 14CR engines were heavy, but had smaller driving wheels giving the effect of lower gearing.
The mainline engines were mostly Class 23, an occasional Class 15E and some new Class 15F. It's funny how commerce works. The 23's were made in Germany by Henschell and all the others by North British Locomotive.
Trains arriving from the south or Cape Town had to be sorted by shunting all bogeyed trucks to immediately behind the lead engine, then came the second or banker engine and all the non bogeyed trucks. The two-axled trucks were likely to be derailed on the convoluted compound bends when being pushed up the pass.
Many a time I joined my father on the footplate while shunting operations were being carried out. This was especially good fun on stormy, wet winter's nights. The huff of power, the roar of the fire drawn by rapid draught when a heavy load had to be heaved uphill, the happy hissing of superheated steam escaping from numerous little leaks, the lowing and shuffling of cattle in cattle trucks, the baffled bleating of sleepy sheep, the disgruntled grunting of penned pigs, the lisping whistles of these mechanical mammoths, the cacophony of a slip... it was indeed heaven to a little boy of ten.
The walk to and from home was fraught with hazards. Trains coming and going. We were at war. Traffic was heavy. You had to be very careful not to trip over rails, pieces of spilt coal or signal and points control cables.
I will never forget the ominous loud clang and rumble that shook the village when two trains collided. The collision was caused when a locomotive and train ploughed into the back of a stationery train. The front half and locomotive of the stationery train were away in the goods shunting yard at the time.The reason for the collision was the incorrect setting of the points.
In another accident a train derailed on the last hairpin bend coming down the pass into the station. The track turned sharply to the left but the engine and half the goods train just carried straight on, ploughing down the hillside and then rolling over.The odd thing was that the same driver was involved in both accidents.
Train drivers coming down the pass used to code whistle two miles from home to alert their wives to put the kettle because they would be home within fifteen minutes.
